Girolamo Fracastoro discusses the nature and the…
1546 CE
Girolamo Fracastoro discusses the nature and the spread of infectious diseases, describing the transmission of disease by "seminaria," or living germs (and thus foretelling in many ways the true germ theory of disease).
In his work De contagione et contagiosis morbis ("On Contagion and Contagious Diseases"), published in 1546, Fracastoro, whose theory will remain influential for nearly three centuries, states that each epidemic disease is caused by a different type of rapidly multiplying minute body and that these bodies are transferred from the infector to the infected in three ways: by direct contact; by carriers such as soiled clothing and linen; and through the air.