GEOLOGY. GERM THEORY

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THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE OF RF

Federal State Education Institution Of Higher Professional Education

“Penza State University”

Department of History Of Medicine

“ GIROLAMO FRACASTORO” Wrote On Syphilis, Forerunner of Germ Theory

Discipline : History Of Medicine

Group: 19LL2a

Name : Pardeshi Abhay

PENZA 2020

Girolamo Fracastoro

Girolamo Fracastoro, Latin Hieronymus Fracastorius, (born c. 1478, Verona, Republic of Venice [now in Italy]—died Aug. 8, 1553, Caffi [now Affi], near Verona), Italian physician, poet, astronomer, and geologist, who proposed a its empirical formulation by Louis Pasteur and Robert KochAt the University of Padua Fracastoro was a colleague of the astronomer Copernicus. As a physician, he maintained a private practice in Verona. He is best-known for “Syphilis sive morbus Gallicus” (1530; “Syphilis or the French Disease”), a work in rhyme giving an account of the disease, which he named. He made an intense study of epidemic diseases, and, while in the service of Pope Paul III at the Council of Trent (1545–63), he provided the medical justification for the removal of the council to the papal state of Bologna by pointing out the danger of plague in the north Italian town of Trent.

Fracastoro outlined his concept of epidemic diseases in De contagione et contagiosis morbis (1546; “On Contagion and Contagious Diseases”), stating that each is caused by a different type of rapidly multiplying minute body and that these bodies are transferred from the infector to the infected in three ways: by direct contact; by carriers such as soiled clothing and linen; and through the air. Although microorganisms had been mentioned as a possible cause of disease by the Roman scholar Marcus Varro in the 1st century BC, Fracastoro’s was the first scientific statement of the true nature of contagion, infection, disease germs, and modes of disease transmission. Fracastoro’s theory was widely praised during his time, but its influence waned, and it fell into general disrepute until an experimental version was later elaborated by German physician Robert Koch and French chemist Louis Pasteur.

LIFE

Fracastoro was born in Verona, Republic of Venice and educated at Padua where at 19 he was appointed professor at the University. On account of his eminence in the practice of medicine, he was elected physician of the Council of Trent. A bronze statue was erected in his honor by the citizens of Padua, while his native city commemorated their great compatriot by a marble statue. He lived and practised in his hometown. In 1546 he proposed that epidemic diseases are caused by transferable tiny particles or " spores" that could transmit infection by direct or indirect contact or even without contact over long distances. In his writing, the " spores" of diseases may refer to chemicals rather than to any living entities.

He appears to have first used the Latin word fomes, meaning tinder, in the sense of infectious agent, in his essay on contagion De Contagione et Contagiosis Morbis, published in 1546: " I call fomites [from the Latin fomes, meaning " tinder" ] such things as clothes, linen, etc., which although not themselves corrupt, can nevertheless foster the essential seeds of the contagion and thus cause infection. ". His theory remained influential for nearly three centuries, before being superseded by a fully developed germ theory.

The name for syphilis is derived from Fracastoro's 1530 epic poem in three books, Syphilis sive morbus gallicus (" Syphilis or The French Disease" ), about a shepherd boy named Syphilus who insulted the Greek god Apolloand was punished by that god with a horrible disease. The poem suggests using mercury and " guaiaco" as a cure. His 1546 book (De contagione, " On Contagion" ) also gave the first description for typhus. The collected works of Fracastoro appeared for the first time in 1555.

Alongside Syphilis, Fracastoro wrote a Biblical epic in two books, Joseph, and a collection of miscellaneous poems, Carmina. Joseph was translated under the title The Maidens Blush, or Joseph by Josuah Sylvester. A full edition and English translation of Fracastoro's poetry was prepared by James Gardner for The I Tatti Renaissance Library.

A portrait of Fracastoro that has been in the collection of the National Gallery since 1924 has recently been attributed to the renowned Italian painter Titian. The re-attribution has led scholars to speculate that Titian may have painted the portrait in exchange for syphilis treatment.

GEOLOGY

It was not till the earlier part of the sixteenth century that geological phenomena began to attract the attention of the Christian nations. At that period a very animated controversy sprung up in Italy, concerning the true nature and origin of marine shells, and other organized fossils found abundantly in the strata of the peninsula. The excavations made in 1517, for repairing the city of Verona, brought to light a multitude of curious petrifactions, and furnished matter for speculation to different authors, and among the rest to Fracastoro, who declared his opinion, that fossil shells had all belonged to living animals, which had formerly lived and multiplied, where their exuviæ are now found. He exposed the absurdity of having recourse to a certain 'plastic force, ' which it was said had the power to fashion stones into organic forms; and, with no less cogent arguments, demonstrated the futility of attributing the situation of the shells in question to the Mosaic deluge, a theory obstinately defended by some. That inundation, he observed, was too transient, it consisted principally of fluviatile waters; and if it had transported shells to great distances, must have strewed them over the surface, not buried them at vast depths in the interior of mountains. His clear exposition of the evidence would have terminated the discussion forever, if the passions of mankind had not been enlisted in the dispute; and even though doubts should for a time have remained in some minds, they would speedily have been removed by the fresh information obtained almost immediately afterwards, respecting the structure of fossil remains, and of their living analogues. The clear and philosophical views of Fracastoro were disregarded, and the talent and argumentative powers of the learned were doomed for three centuries to be wasted in the discussion of these two simple and preliminary questions: first, whether fossil remains had ever belonged to living creatures; and secondly, whether, if this be admitted, all the phenomena could be explained by the Noachian deluge

Works

· Syphilis, sive Morbi Gallici (1530)

· Di Vino Temperatura (1534)

· Homocentricorum sive de Stellis, de Causis Criticorum Dierum Libellus (1535)

· Homocentrica (1538)

· Naugerius sive de Poetica Dialogus (c. 1540)

· De Contagione et Contagiosis Morbis (1546)

· Syphilis sive de morbo gallico (1539, poem)

GERM THEORY

Germ theory, in medicine, the theory that certain diseases are caused by the invasion of the body by microorganisms, organisms too small to be seen except through a microscope. The French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur, the English surgeon Joseph Lister, and the German physician Robert Koch are given much of the credit for development and acceptance of the theory. In the mid-19th century Pasteur showed that fermentation and putrefaction are caused by organisms in the air; in the 1860s Lister revolutionized surgical practice by utilizing carbolic acid (phenol) to exclude atmospheric germs and thus prevent putrefaction in compound fractures of bones; and in the 1880s Koch identified the organisms that cause tuberculosis and cholera.

Although the germ theory has long been considered proved, its full implications for medical practice were not immediately apparent; bloodstained frock coats were considered suitable operating-room attire even in the late 1870s, and surgeons operated without masks or head coverings as late as the 1890s.

Epidemic

Epidemic, an occurrence of disease that is temporarily of high prevalence. An epidemic occurring over a wide geographical area (e. g., worldwide) is called a pandemic. The rise and decline in epidemic prevalence of an infectious disease is a probability phenomenon dependent upon transfer of an effective dose of the infectious agent from an infected individual to a susceptible one. After an epidemic has subsided, the affected host population contains a sufficiently small proportion of susceptible individuals that reintroduction of the infection will not result in a new epidemic. Since the parasite population cannot reproduce itself in such a host population, the host population as a whole is immune to the epidemic disease, a phenomenon termed herd immunity.

Following an epidemic, however, the host population tends to revert to a condition of susceptibility because of:

(1) the deterioration of individual immunity;

(2) the removal of immune individuals by death; and

(3) the influx of susceptible individuals by birth. Over time the population as a whole again becomes susceptible. The time elapsing between successive epidemic peaks is variable and differs from one disease to another. By the late 20th century the definition of epidemic had been extended to include outbreaks of any chronic disease or condition (e. g., heart disease or obesity).

The term epidemic is sometimes reserved for disease among human beings; an outbreak of disease among animals other than man is termed epizootic.

influenza pandemic of 1918–19: temporary hospitalA temporary hospital in Camp Funston, Kansas, during the 1918–19 influenza pandemic. Courtesy of the National Museum of Health and Medicine, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Washington, D. C

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