Girolamo Fracastoro

Girolamo Fracastoro (Fracastorius) (1478-1553) was an Italian, physician, scholar and poet. Born in Verona, later educated at Padua, he lived and practised in his hometown. In 1546 he proposed that epidemic diseases are caused by transferable seedlike entities that could transmit infection by direct or indirect contact or even without contact over long distances. The name for syphilis is derived from his poem from 1530 which can be regarded as the first treatise on the disease.