c. 1478-1553

Italian physician and astronomer remembered for his pioneering work in epidemiology. Syphilis, then rampant in Europe, derives its names from his poem Syphilis sive morbus Gallicus (1530). His work De contagione (1546) lists the three modes by which contagion spread—simple contact, carriers (such as cloths, bedding, etc.), and from a distance (in which some have seen his unlikely anticipation of microbes). Fracastoro was also the last to defend a theory of solid celestial spheres.