This information is over 2 years old. Information was current at time of publication.{"id":6959,"date":"2013-11-18T14:35:22","date_gmt":"2013-11-18T18:35:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/info.hsls.pitt.edu\/updatereport\/?p=6959"},"modified":"2017-10-12T11:00:14","modified_gmt":"2017-10-12T15:00:14","slug":"treasures-from-the-rare-book-room-girolamo-fracastoro%e2%80%99s-poem-on-syphilis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/info.hsls.pitt.edu\/updatereport\/treasures-from-the-rare-book-room-girolamo-fracastoro%e2%80%99s-poem-on-syphilis\/","title":{"rendered":"Treasures from the Rare Book Room: Girolamo Fracastoro\u2019s Poem on Syphilis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-large wp-image-6948\" src=\"https:\/\/info.hsls.pitt.edu\/updatereport\/files\/2013\/11\/fracastoro2-571x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Fracastoro\" width=\"250\" height=\"449\" srcset=\"https:\/\/info.hsls.pitt.edu\/updatereport\/files\/2013\/11\/fracastoro2-571x1024.jpg 571w, https:\/\/info.hsls.pitt.edu\/updatereport\/files\/2013\/11\/fracastoro2-167x300.jpg 167w, https:\/\/info.hsls.pitt.edu\/updatereport\/files\/2013\/11\/fracastoro2.jpg 696w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/>Syphilis ou le mal v\u00e9n\u00e9rien: Poeme Latin de Jerome Fracastor avec la traduction en Fran\u00e7ois &amp; des notes [Syphilis, or the venereal disease: the Latin poem of Girolamo Fracastoro with French translation &amp; notes]. Paris, 1753<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Girolamo Fracastoro (1478-1553) was a Venetian nobleman educated at Padua University. Although medicine was his true passion, he was also a poet, humanist, and scientist; and his many interests included astronomy, mathematics, physics, botany, geology, and geography. He counted Copernicus, the Renaissance mathematician and astronomer, among his friends.<\/p>\n<p>As a physician, Fracastoro is considered one of the founding fathers of modern medicine. He discovered that microorganisms were able to transmit infection and proposed a scientific hypothesis on tiny particles or \u201cspores\u201d 300 years before the empirical formulation of germ theory was developed by Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nIn 1521, he wrote several letters to his friend, Cardinal Pietro Bembo, in which he described an unknown illness as coming from the New World. A few years later, he published an epic poem about it for general audiences<i>, Syphilis, sive morbus gallicus<\/i> (Verona, 1530). The second version of the poem, published under the title, <i>Syphilidis sive de morbo gallico<\/i> (Rome, 1531), was written for physicians and describes the new illness\u2019 pathology, symptoms, diagnosis, and therapy in great detail.<\/p>\n<p>The poem enjoyed enormous popularity. Through the years, it was published in about 50 Latin editions and about 60 editions in other languages. It is a fascinating example of the successful dissemination of new scientific discoveries through literature. <i>Syphilis<\/i> was not the only poem on &#8220;the French disease,&#8221; but it was considered the longest, the most serious and eloquent, and the best advertised. Some held Fracastoro\u2019s work in such high regard as to put it above Virgil\u2019s poetry.<\/p>\n<p>Falk Library\u2019s copy, from 1753, includes the Latin text and parallel French translation on the opposite page. It is currently on exhibit in the Falk Library lobby display case.<\/p>\n<p>~Gosia Fort<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Syphilis ou le mal v\u00e9n\u00e9rien: Poeme Latin de Jerome Fracastor avec la traduction en Fran\u00e7ois &amp; des notes [Syphilis, or the venereal disease: the Latin poem of Girolamo Fracastoro with French translation &amp; notes]. Paris, 1753 Girolamo Fracastoro (1478-1553) was a Venetian nobleman educated at Padua University. Although medicine was his true passion, he was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"issue-archives","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[114,-1],"class_list":["post-6959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-december-2013","tag-treasures-rare-book-room","avhec_catgroup-issue-archives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/info.hsls.pitt.edu\/updatereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/info.hsls.pitt.edu\/updatereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/info.hsls.pitt.edu\/updatereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/info.hsls.pitt.edu\/updatereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/info.hsls.pitt.edu\/updatereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6959"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/info.hsls.pitt.edu\/updatereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10484,"href":"https:\/\/info.hsls.pitt.edu\/updatereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6959\/revisions\/10484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/info.hsls.pitt.edu\/updatereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/info.hsls.pitt.edu\/updatereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/info.hsls.pitt.edu\/updatereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}