Girolamo Fracastoro

Girolamo Fracastoro (ca. 1478–1553).
Opera omnia.
Venice: Giunta, 1584. (BRC0004)

Fracastoro studied medicine, literature, philosophy, and other subjects at the University of Padua and received his medical degree in 1502. He then served as instructor in logic and anatomy at the university for a half dozen years before returning to his home in Verona, where he practiced medicine for two decades. In the history of epidemiology, he is recognized for his De contagione et contagiosis morbis et curatione. First published at Venice in 1546, the work describes contagious diseases and how these illnesses are spread. Fracastoro is also well known for Syphilis, sive morbus gallicus. This poem on the disease syphilis, printed in four editions between 1530 and 1536, provided the disease its name. The texts of De contagione and Syphilis are included in this 1584 third edition of the author’s collected works.