The development of the doctrine of contagium vivum 1500-1750 : a preliminary sketch / by Charles Singer.
- Charles Singer
- Date:
- 1913
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The development of the doctrine of contagium vivum 1500-1750 : a preliminary sketch / by Charles Singer. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![infection wliicli can do so. To explain the latter phenomenon, as well as the passage of an infec- tion over an intermediate space, or by means of fomites, he revived an atomic conception of Lucretius, and regarded infective bodies as “seminaria,” emitting “semina” of disease. Pro- bably tliese words had not for Pracastor the full significance that has since been attributed to him, or rather it may be better expressed that, like all great writers, his meaning was deeper than he himself realised. PracastQi’s works were widely read from the very date of their publication, but it was more than a century before his brilliant insight into the essential nature of infectious diseases led to further definite progress. Indeed, for three centuries following Pracastor’s death, the views generally held were retrograde as compared to his. The great majority of writers of the sixteenth century who quote him (with or without acknowledgment) are mere copyists and adtl nothing to the conceptions of the master, and it is probable that, with the exception of a small school at the beginning of the eighteenth century and a few writers of earlier date, Pracastor’s work was never fulfy understood until modern times, it would be impossible here to mention even a tithe of those sixteenth-century writers on the plague and other infectious diseases who owed their theories entirely to Pracastor. Among those who comi)ieheuded him more thoroughly may be mentioned thq botanist, Andrea Matthioli (1564) {a), who ajjplies the theory specially to rabies, Prancisco fJoccalino (155G) (6), Jacob Zovelli (1657) (c), Gabriel Ayala (1502) (t/), Jerome Donzellino (157U) (e), Antonio Saracenus (1572) (/), Philip Ingrassias (15iG) (</), and Andrea (iratiolo di Salo (157G) (h). Especial mention may be made of Le Paulmier de Grentemesmil ‘(i), who, in 1578, reapplied Pracastor’s views to Syphilis, and Jerome Mercurialis ()), who followed Pracastor very closely and spoke of him as “the first who opened men’s eyes to the nature of contagion.” In a few works of the sixteenth century there are certain additions to the conceptions of I'racastor, though it is often difhcult or impossibfe to trace such suggestions to their true source. Thus, the great name of Jerome Cardan may be associated with the suggestion that the seeds of disease are truly living, and reproduce their kind after the manner of minute living animals (1557) (T). Cardan regarded the inorganic world as animated no less than the organic, while in his suggestions that all animals were originally worms and that all creation is of the nature of a progressive development, we may clearly discern the germinal ideas of modern conceptions. Suggestions similar to those of Cardan, but bearing even more directly on the subject in hand, were made by Victor de Pouagentibus (155G), who freely compared the generation and conveyance of fevers to the putrefactive processes wJiich produce “worms” in corpses (Z). De Ponagentibus shows considerable grasp of Pracastor’s theories in dealing with the question of fomites, and invokes Scabies especially in this connection. Another follower of Cardan was Gabriel Pallopius (m) (15G4), who connected the living and exhaled corpuscles more espe- cially with phthisis and syi)hilis. One passage in the work of this writer might be interpreted as implying a knowledge of the corpuscles of the blood which he regarded as exhaled in the disease. This and similar passages were a stumbling- block to the early miscroscopists of the following century, many of whom interpreted the blood corpuscles, which they really did see, in the light of the hypotheti- cal corpuscles of Pallopius, Pracastor and others. The lines in question in Pallopius’ book may be translated as follows:—“Every contagious disease spreads itself throughout the whole infected substance. Thus, in plitliisis, this force of contagion is con- («) PETRA ANDREA MATTHIOLI. Comnientarii in Libris Sex Pedacii Dioscoridis. Venice, 1554. (5) FRANCISCO BOCCALINO. De Causis Peetilentia. Venice, 1556. (c) JACOPO ZOVELLI. De Pestilentia etatie in Quo, Quicquid ad Peetem Cuianduiii. Venice, 1557. (il) GABRIEL AYALA. De Lue Pestilentie Elegiarum liber uiiue. Antwerp, 1562. ((') HIERONYMO DONZELLINO. De Natura, Caueis et Legitima Curatione Febris Pestilentie. Venice, 1570. if) iJ. ANTONIUS SARACENUS. De Peste Commentarius in quo pra/Ster pestis naturae, praecautionis etiam atque curationis ipsius uberiorem explioationem, non ]jauca quae super eadem materia hoc nostro seculo & coelo in contentionem plerumque veniunt obiter strictemque tractantur. Lyons, 1572. (p) GIOVANI PHILIPO INGRASSIAS. Informatione Del Pestifero & Contagioso Morbo il quale allligge et have afllictu queeta litta di Palermo e motre altre citta e Terre di questo Regno di Sicilia nell ’Anno 1575 et 1576. Data ^o invurrissimo et Poteetissimo Re de Spagna, 1576. (A) ANDREA GRATIOLO DI SALO. Discorso di Peste...con un Catologo di tutte le Peste piu notabili de tempi passati. Venice, 1576. (i) JUL. PALMARIUS (LE PAULMIER DE GRENTEMESNIL). De Morbis Contagiosie libri septem De Lue Venerea Libri duo. Paris, 1578. (;) HIERONYMO MERCURIALI. Leotiones Patavii habitu 1577 in quibus de Peste tractatur. De peste in Univei'siun, praesertim vero de Veneta & Patavina. Praelectiones Pat. erudites. Venice, 1577. (A) JEROME CARDAN. De Rerum varietate Basel, 1557 ; see also the same author’s De Subtiltate Beruin Basel, 1558, and also the much earlier De Malo Precentiorum Medioorum medendi usi Libellus, Venice, 1536, for animated effluvia. T(he inter-relationship of the work of Cardan and Fracastor requires further- investigation. (1) VICTOR DE BONAGENTIBUS or DE BONAGENS. Decern Problemata de Peste. Venice, 1556. (ill) GABRIEL FALLOPIUS. De Morbo GaRico Trac-tatus. 1564.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22463392_0008.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
