I Have Landed by Stephen Jay Gould

Author:Stephen Jay Gould
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781409000136
Publisher: Random House

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 was soon obscured by the mystical doctrines of the Renaissance physician Paracelsus, and it fell into general disrepute until it was proved by Koch and Pasteur.

But Fracastoro deserves our warmest praise for his brilliance and compassion within the beliefs of his own time. We can only appreciate his genius when we understand the features of his work that strike us as most odd by current reckonings—particularly his choice of Latin epic poetry to describe syphilis, and his christening of the disease for a mythical shepherd whose suffering also reflected Fracastoro’s political needs and beliefs. In his article on Fracastoro for the Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Bruno Zanobio gives a far more accurate description, properly rooted in sixteenth-century knowledge, for Fracastoro’s concept of contagious seeds:

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