The Johns Hopkins University Press Bulletin of The History of Medicine
The Johns Hopkins University Press Bulletin of The History of Medicine
The Johns Hopkins University Press Bulletin of The History of Medicine
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms
The Johns Hopkins University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and
extend access to Bulletin of the History of Medicine
This content downloaded from 205.208.116.24 on Wed, 27 Mar 2019 22:45:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
NOTES AND COMMENTS
LEO SPITZER
It is well known that the term " Syphilis " occurs first in the t
and in the title of Fracastoro's didactic epic Morbus gallicus sive
published in 1530, but the origin of this word which was to rep
number of coinages, that had come into being at the end of the
the beginning of the 16th century in consequence of the appear
time of the new disease, is not yet quite clear. The term mus
unknown to Fracastoro at the time when he was writing th
books in which he called the disease by the traditional pop
morbus gallicus .
Franz Boll in Neue Jahrbücher XXV (1905), pp. 72 seq., po
that the myth, told by Fracastoro in the third book, of the
Syp{h)ilus who challenged the gods by introducing a divine
King Alcithous in the island of Ophyra (that is, in the newly
Haiti) and was, along with his king and his compatriots, punishe
gods with the terrible disease, is patterned on the similar myth
as told by Ovid in his Metamorphoses VI, 146 seq., and that t
the shepherd Syphilus, from which Fracastoro derives the n
illness syphilis 1 and, secondarily, the title of his epic, must, in
difference in the quantity of the first syllable ( Syphilus in
text), be related to Sy pilus (in some manuscripts Syphilus ), the
the second son of Niobe and of the mountain where Niobe w
into stone. In this free handling of Greek mythological mate
purpose of his contemporary epic, Fracastoro proceeded as was h
the story of the hunter liceus , in the second book, who sinned b
stag sacred to Diana, is patterned on a similar Ovidian story
memnon, and the name of the former is an alteration of that of
Hyleus also found in Ovid.
In the Johns Hopkins Bulletin of the Institute of the History
cine II (1934), pp. 516 seq., Professor Hendrickson has raise
portant objections against Boll's theory:
l"a primo (Syphilo) traxit cognomina morbus, syphilidemque ab eo labe
coloni."
269
This content downloaded from 205.208.116.24 on Wed, 27 Mar 2019 22:45:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
270 LEO SPITZER
This content downloaded from 205.208.116.24 on Wed, 27 Mar 2019 22:45:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
THE ETYMOLOGY OF THE TERM " SYPHILIS " 271
2 A similar concern of Fracastoro with the metrical fitness of his newly-coined terms
is revealed by his change of America (with its four short syllables) into the pseudo-
Greek form Ammërïcê which forms a dactylus ( - w ~ ) plus one length. Perhaps he may
This content downloaded from 205.208.116.24 on Wed, 27 Mar 2019 22:45:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
272 LEO SPITZER
This content downloaded from 205.208.116.24 on Wed, 27 Mar 2019 22:45:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
THE ETYMOLOGY OF THE TERM " SYPHILIS " 273
names, he in his poem had chosen to call the disease syphilis " - on
believe that the truly existing name was, not but erysipelas w
Fracastoro transmogriphied into syphilis . On the other hand this chan
of the name would also fit the words of his contemporary Lillius Gyral
" [Fracastorius] de Morbo Gallico, ut vulgo dicimus, ipse a voce bar
Syphilida vocat " on which Hendrickson (p. 537) comments thus:
..." barbarism," as a technical term of Greek and Latin grammar, is mere
incorrect or impure form or spelling of a single word (as opposed to " soloeci
which is an error of construction in a group of words). Gyraldus speaks as if
knew and understood the word, but recognized it as in some way incorrect.
This content downloaded from 205.208.116.24 on Wed, 27 Mar 2019 22:45:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms