<< message forwarded by listowner, David Wilson-Okamura >> Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 00:02:01 +0200 From: Robert Dyer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
John Geyssen a écrit : > Probably so named because of his lack of cooking skills since anthrax means > charcoal in Greek. > jg That is the reason why the French name for the disease is "charbon" (charcoal). In ancient Greek medical writings 'anthrax' is applied to malignant, dark pustules, perhaps those of any fatal disease, although the modern symptoms of the skin infection of the disease anthrax are indeed charcoal-colored pustules at the point of entry. Modern encyclopedias say that the disease owes its name to the black color of the organs of animals and humans killed by this bacterium, whose scientific name is Bacillus anthracis. According to these encyclopedias, the disease known by this name was identified in the 18th Century, and Pasteur was the first to vaccinate against it. In the Georgics, Vergil describes a plague that destroys the cattle of the hard-working farmer, thus destroying the fruit of all his labor (3.478-566). The reason to believe that this plague is anthrax comes from lines 507-508, where Vergil adds to the description on which the passage is based (Nicander, Theriaca 301-2) that the blood issuing from the dying horse's nostrils is ater 'black'. Black blood appears an echo of the term anthrax. This would then suggest that ancient medical observation correctly identified charcoal-colored organs and blood of dead animals as symptoms of this particular plague. This cannot be taken as certain proof that ancient doctors, and Vergil, understood the characteristics of the plague now known as anthrax, but I accept it as plausible. I have always taught that the disease descibed in the Georgics is probably anthrax, a disease that struck cattle on the farms where I grew up in Northland, New Zealand, and indeed is accurately described by Vergil. Robert R. Dyer Paris, France Here is the poet Cecil Day Lewis's translation of some of the passage: "The horse, a prize-winner once, takes no more pride in his paces, Forgets the grass, turns awy from water, keeps on stamping The ground; sweat comes and goes on his dejected ears-- A cold sweat meaning death. The hide feels dry if you stroke him, stubborn and harsh to the touch. Such are the earlier signs he gives of a mortal sickness. But when the disease begins to reach a deadlier stage, The eyes are inflamed, the breath comes deep and dragging, broken By heavy groans, the long flanks heave with profound sobs, Out of the nostrils oozes Black blood, the tongue is rough and swells in the throat and blocks it.... Watch that bull, steaming from the weight of the iron coulter! He drops in his tracks, his mouth drools with bloody foam, A last groan lifts to heaven. Sadly the ploughman goes To unyoke the bullock mourning his butty's death... Slowly the neck droops dispirited to the ground. He toiled for us and served us, he turned the difficult earth With the plough,-- and what does it profit him?" ----------------------------------------------------------------------- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
