I suggest more primary source research should be done about this claim before drawing such maps.
Speaking for Polish, I was not able to find any primary or even reliable secondary sources that claim anything about it being “turkish disease” (choroba turecka). Turkish disease, or a “sultan’s disease” was referred to severe diarrhea resulting from “sea sickness”, later to be associated to e. coli. bacteria. Is it possible that somewhere it got confused in translation when making this association?
I’ve also been unable to find anything about it being a german disease outside of modern or foreign sources which don’t quote where they got that term from. The only terms in history I was able to validate here is “syfilis”, “kiła”, “przymiot” (1581) and… “franca” (1551). Today, the term “franca” is a general insult term.
Now… For the french one, and what I primarily suspect to be the most solid argument here is the fact that in most of Europe this was referred to as “sys - philos”, so literally “swine loving”, because in 1530 an Italian dude wrote a poem about it, where supposedly god Apollo sent down the first guy with that disease and his name was syphilus. That poem was subtitled as “morbus gallicus” (french disease). Is that because they hated the French, or perhaps because the french were already calling it Neapolitan disease because there was an outbreak of the disease in Naples in 1495… I don’t know, I didn’t research too much about it so correct me if I’m wrong. Just seems like the naming started between french and italians, and later spread
But, while I cannot speak for claims in other languages, I encourage you, if you speak a language, to do some digging to validate these claims. It’s interesting how English-speaking sources are claiming something and there’s seemingly no sources on it. How do those stories originate I wonder. Other than the french argument, how many of those can be validated?
I suggest more primary source research should be done about this claim before drawing such maps. Speaking for Polish, I was not able to find any primary or even reliable secondary sources that claim anything about it being “turkish disease” (choroba turecka). Turkish disease, or a “sultan’s disease” was referred to severe diarrhea resulting from “sea sickness”, later to be associated to e. coli. bacteria. Is it possible that somewhere it got confused in translation when making this association? I’ve also been unable to find anything about it being a german disease outside of modern or foreign sources which don’t quote where they got that term from. The only terms in history I was able to validate here is “syfilis”, “kiła”, “przymiot” (1581) and… “franca” (1551). Today, the term “franca” is a general insult term.
Now… For the french one, and what I primarily suspect to be the most solid argument here is the fact that in most of Europe this was referred to as “sys - philos”, so literally “swine loving”, because in 1530 an Italian dude wrote a poem about it, where supposedly god Apollo sent down the first guy with that disease and his name was syphilus. That poem was subtitled as “morbus gallicus” (french disease). Is that because they hated the French, or perhaps because the french were already calling it Neapolitan disease because there was an outbreak of the disease in Naples in 1495… I don’t know, I didn’t research too much about it so correct me if I’m wrong. Just seems like the naming started between french and italians, and later spread
But, while I cannot speak for claims in other languages, I encourage you, if you speak a language, to do some digging to validate these claims. It’s interesting how English-speaking sources are claiming something and there’s seemingly no sources on it. How do those stories originate I wonder. Other than the french argument, how many of those can be validated?