and was described as something "which had never occurred before nor been heard of within the memory of man (Rosebury 24)." Between the years 1495 and 1498 there were a total of nine similar documents that emerged through out Western Europe.
             In 1530 Fracastor, a poet and physician, published the poem, Syphilis sive Morbus Gallicus, translated "Syphilis or the French Disease." The main character was a shepherd in Hispaniola named Syphilis. Syphilis caught the disease for disrespecting the Gods. At the time Fracastor believed in the previous documents, but would provide his own original ideas concerning how the disease reached Europe. He also alluded to possible treatments, that Shakespeare will later use in his plays. Fracastor used the name "syphilis" for both the main character and the disease he contracted. However, the name of the disease continued to be known as "the French disease." It was not until the 1850's, more than three centuries after Fracastor's poem, that the disease was called "syphilis."
             Fracastor's poem grew widely popular in Western Europe, and was believed to be mostly factual at the time. It might seem odd that a fictional poem with fictional characters would be widely regarded as truth, but under the extreme circumstances of the sixteenth century syphilis epidemic it makes perfect sense. Syphilis had caused terror in the hearts of the people in the sixteenth century due to its rapid spread. Physicians seemed helpless to cure it. No one could do anything, but believe in what Fracastor wrote. In the poem Fracastor had answers concerning its origin, symptoms, and cure for this new disease.
             He went along with the common belief that it appeared in the French army before Naples around the year 1495. "From France, and justly took from France his name, (Rosebury 31)." This quote provides the evidence concerning syphilis' ...