Girolamo Fracastoro

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Science & Tech

Girolamo Fracastoro

Italian physician

Also known as: Hieronymus Fracastorius

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Mar 4, 2024 • Article History

Girolamo Fracastoro

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Category: Science & Tech

Latin:: Hieronymus Fracastorius

Born:: c. 1478, Verona, Republic of Venice [now in Italy]

Died:: Aug. 8, 1553, Caffi [now Affi], near Verona

Notable Works:: “De contagione et contagiosis morbis”; “Syphilis sive morbus Gallicus”

Subjects Of Study:: epidemic; germ theory; syphilis

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Girolamo Fracastoro (born c. 1478, Verona, Republic of Venice [now in Italy]—died Aug. 8, 1553, Caffi [now Affi], near Verona) was an Italian physician, poet, astronomer, and geologist, who proposed a scientific germ theory of disease more than 300 years before its empirical formulation by Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch. At 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. ...(100 of 276 words)

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