This is one of those times when I wish I had access to assorted online databases. The current issue of Archives of Dermatology has a potentially very interesting article, it seems, with a 150-word tease (since there isn’t an abstract). How’s this for Classical Tradition:
In early times, some physicians named syphilis for Greek and Roman myths as a way to explain the difficulty in overcoming the disease. Guillaume Rondelet (1507-1566) called syphilis Hydra’s disease for the Greek mythological monster Hydra from Lerna, which had 9 heads, with the one in the middle being immortal. Gervais Uçay (17th century) named the numerous symptoms and clinical features of syphilis Proteus’ disease after the Greek divinity, who was able to change his appearance according to circumstance.
People believed that the outcome of syphilis was God’s severe punishment for lascivious men. Juan Almenar (15th-16th century) named the disease passio turpis saturnina in remembrance of the filthy passion of Saturn, a Roman divinity, known as Kronos in Greek mythology, who killed his own sons by eating them.1 Almenar stated, “Venereal disease is a diathesis which is . . .
- via: Greek and Roman Myths Recognized in Naming Syphilis (Archives of Dermatology 2011;147(11):1316. [not sure how these refs work])
… the link will take you to access possibilities, including shelling out thirty bucks for what I think is a one page article.
rogueclassicism 