Greek and Roman Myths Recognized in Naming Syphilis

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 U çay (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 owed to the sexual trade  .  .  .  at the beginning it shows some ulcers  .  .  .  on the genital organs  .  .  .  subsequently it affects the humours, especially  .  .  .  the seminal fluids. ” Shortly after syphilis was introduced in Europe, physicians began to realize that the disease was sexually transmitted, leading Jacques de B éthencourt (16th century) to use the synonym Gallic disease and the adjective venereal from Venus, the love goddess in Roman mythology, and Bernardino Tomitano (1517-1576) to call it bad Venus. Hermann Boerhaave (1668-1738) called syphilis aphrodisiaca lue, from the Latin word lues, meaning disease, contagious, endemy, or plague, and Aphrodite, the love goddess in Greek mythology. This last appellative did not last long, but the term venereal lues, which was introduced by Giulio Cesare Vanini (1585-1619), was used in Italy until the first half of the 19th century.

The seriousness of syphilis was recognized by Aurelio Minadoi (1548-1615), who believed that the disease represented a venereal epidemic and called it venereal virulence, while other physicians called it venereal plague. Antonio Nunes Ribeiro Sanchez (1699-1783) said that when a patient recovered from syphilis and the symptoms disappeared, the poison of the disease was still in the patient's body and that it could be passed from mother to child as chronic venereal disease.² Also, the quacksalver Vergery de Velnos (XVI-XVII century) called the disease maladie de Cyth ére (or Cyth ére disease) from Citera, actually Kytira, a Greek island, from whose seas Venus was born. The name Cupido disease came from Cupid, who was Venus' son and was said to be a lover of his mother by Bronzino (1503-1572). Finally, Jean Fernel (1497-1558) described the tragedy by which syphilis afflicts men as follows: “Unless God who is gentle will destroy this ruin, or unless the men mitigate their unbridled lasciviousness, the venereal disease will not end, and I believe that it will be forever the friend of the human people. ”³