Introduction - Historical Notes

Reaction to the Outbreak

Girolamo Fracastoro (1478-1553)

At the end of the Middle Ages and beginning of the Modern Age, syphilis spread from Italy and France to every European country in a surprisingly speedy fashion.
"Syphilis" was originally the title of a Latin poem by the Italian scholar Girolamo Fracastoro (1530). This long mythological poem mentions a shepherd named Syphilus who offended the sun god and was punished by him with this disease. The author also calls it the “French disease” (morbus Gallicus), a term widely adopted in the following centuries. The French, of course, called it the Italian disease (the Dutch called it Spanish, the Russians Polish, the Turks called it Christian, and the Japanese called it the Portuguese disease).
In any case, the frightening spread of syphilis soon spelled the end of medieval sexual lassitude. The formerly popular public bath houses were closed, and people became increasingly prudish.