Girolamo Fracastoro (Fracastorius) (1478‑August 8, 1553) was an Italian physician, scholar (in mathematics, geography and astronomy), poet and atomist.
Born of an ancient family in Verona, 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 disease may refer to chemicals rather than to any living entities.
"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."
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 named Syphilis. 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.

Works

This article incorporates text from an edition of the New International Encyclopedia that is in the public domain.