syphilis

英文词源

syphilis

syphilis: [18] Syphilus was the name of a shepherd who according to Syphilis sive morbus Gallicus (Syphilis or the French disease) 1530, a poem by the Veronese doctor Girolamo Fracastoro, was the first sufferer from syphilis. The word Syphilis in Fracastoro’s title meant simply ‘narrative about Syphilus’; he did not use it as a generic term for the disease until 1546, in a treatise called De contagione (Concerning contagious disease). It is not known where he got the name Syphilus from.

syphilis (n.)

infectious venereal disease, 1718, Modern Latin, originally from the title of a poem, "Syphilis, sive Morbus Gallicus" "Syphilis, or the French Disease," published 1530, by Veronese doctor Girolamo Fracastoro (1483-1553), which tells the tale of the shepherd Syphilus, supposed to be the first sufferer from the disease. Fracastoro first used the word as a generic term for the disease in his 1546 treatise "De Contagione." Why he chose the name is unknown; it may be intended as Latin for "Pig-lover," though there was also a Sipylus, a son of Niobe, in Ovid.