[German translation of the syphilis poem by Girolamo Fracastoro by the Essling wound physician Ernst Philipp Heinrich Späth (1809-1856). An unpublished hanwritten document of Dresden historical collection].
In 1840 the Dresden physician and professor at the Chirurgisch-medicinischen Akademie Johann Ludwig Choulant (1791-1861)--at that time one of the most well-known experts in history of medicine--received a German translation of the Fracastoro syphilis poem. This philological piece goes back to the physician and surgeon Ernst Philipp Heinrich Späth (1809-1856) who had already worked on the poem of Girolamo Fracastoro (1478-1553) and its translation in the 1830s. Späth referred to the 1830 Latin publication of Choulant's syphilis poem--which he later used as the literary basis for his adaptation. Späth had acquired his knowledge of philology at a theology seminar in Urach and during his theology studies inTübingen. However, he quit his theology studies to switch to medicine. In 1832 he took the state examination and received a doctorate of medicine and surgery. In the very same year he established a practice as general practitioner, surgeon and obstetrician in Esslingen to eventually be appointed chief surgeon at the Esslingen hospital. Besides his work as a physician Späth was also a publisher, e.g. he also became the editor of the first local Esslingen newspaper. Späth's translation, apparently finished almost completely already in 1837, was sent to Choulant to ask his opinion in 1840. This version seems to be not only one of the rarest but also earliest German adaptations. Although hardly any other medical poem was so often translated into modern languages as Fracastoro's "Syphilidis sive morbi gallici libri III", there are only three German publications mentioned in a 1935 bibliography with the first complete German translation being published in 1858. Späth's script, however, has never been published and has remained in the handwritten estate of Choulant in Dresden ever since.