Fracastoro, Girolamo:

$15,000 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

SYPHILIS, SIVE MORBUS GALLICUS. First edition of "the most famous of all medical poems" (Garrison-Morton), which gave syphilis its present name and recognized its venereal nature. With several references to America, the book also contains the earliest reference to Columbus' voyage in any published poetical work.Written at a time when syphilis was ravaging across Europe, the book is a compendium of the contemporary knowledge on the disease. In the story, a Native American king tells Columbus the myth of Syphilis, a shepherd boy who is affected with the disease as a result of insulting Apollo. The book became so popular that the infection, which was known at the time as morbus gallicus ("French disease"), then took the name of Fracastoro's character.The elegantly printed text is divided into three books. The first examines the origin of syphilis, Fracastoro concluding that it didn't come from the New World, but must have been once common in Europe as it was currently in the Americas. In the second book, Fracastoro establishes that syphilis is a punishment connected to sin, notes that it is sexually transmitted, and discusses manifestations and remedies. The most common treatments were quicksilver and sweating. The third book describes how Columbus' sailors became infected after hunting the birds living in a forest of guaiacum trees sacred to the Sun God. Fracastoro explains that the extract obtained from those very trees (a species discovered by Columbus) has natural curative p

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