Syphilis - the proper name of a fictional shepherd, entered our language in a long poem composed in 1,300 verses of elegant Latin hexameter and published in 1530(Syphilis sive morbus Gallicus- Syphilis, or the French disease) by the greatest physician of his generation, a gentleman from Verona (also the home of Romeo and Juliet), Girolamo Fracastoro (1478-1553).Fracastoro dabbled in astronomy (he became friendly with Copernicus when both studied medicine at Padua), made some crucial geological observations about the nature of fossils, wrote dense philosophical treatises and long classical poems, and held high status as the most celebrated physician of his time (in his role as papal doctor, for example, he supervised the transfer of the Council of Trent to Bologna in 1547, both to honor his holiness's political preferences and to avoid a threatened epidemic). In short, a Renaissance man of the Renaissance itself.
Syphilus is presented as the first man to contract the disease, sent by the god Apollo as punishment for the defiance that Syphilus and his followers had shown him
Courtesy: Syphilis and the Shepherd of Atlantis
Natural History , Oct, 2000 by Stephen Jay Gould (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_8_109/ai_65913170/pg_2/?tag=content;col1)
Image:Albrecht Durer
