https://doi.org/10.21852/sem.2014.4.13
The article discusses the meaning of the term ‘epidemic’ in the literary sources of ancient Greece and Rome. It presents an attempt at tracing the semantics of the words no/soj, loimo/j and e)pidemi/a in Greek literature and illustrates various usage of e)pidemi/a before Hippocrates. It also shows what terms were used by Roman scribes to define pestilence or points out that Homer used the word in Illiad in the meaning of: “this one who liked passionately the frightening civil war”. Sophocles used ‘epidemios’ in King Oedipus referring to dissemination and propagation of the king’s fame. The authors before Hippocrates applied this term almost to any phenomenon (people, rain, war) except for disease. Hippocrates was the first one to adapt it to medical terminology. (P. Martin, E. Martin, 2,500-year …).
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