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[-] DrBob@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 hour ago

Scotland and Poland seem awfully judgy.

[-] TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 1 day ago

A lot of countries hate the French, but us the Dutch hate the Spanish more. That's what you get for invading us with an 80 year long war. We name an illness after you.

[-] Gonzako@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

That's fair, that stupid war was such a waste of resources. Castille could have started the industrial revolution hadn't they wasted their wealth on a multigenerational war

[-] meduz@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

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?

[-] AbsolutelyClawless@piefed.social 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I can confirm that for Croatia it's accurate to a point. At the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century two separate towns had an outbreak of syphilis, and therefore the disease was named after these two places locally. From my understanding, in both cases the disease was mostly transmitted due to poor hygiene, and not much through sexual contact. In the second town, aside from the aforementioned, a bunch of kids and their families were infected because the local doctor vaccinated the kids against pox using materials from an infected child, unintentionally.

But otherwise for the most part syphilis was called Gallic disease.

[-] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

Croatia is just out there accepting blame nobody else is giving them

[-] Siegfried@lemmy.world 116 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

~~Respect for Croatia~~

Edit, just noticed that scotland apparently blames all

Not really deserved 😂 (For more info see my other comment in this thread.)

[-] Siegfried@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

Well, at least they partially changed xenophobia for phobia against the other village... anyway, galic desease is just france

[-] DrBob@lemmy.ca 109 points 1 day ago

It's pretty clear the French are to blame.

[-] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 7 points 1 day ago

It sure seems like everyone blames either the French, or someone who got it from the French...

[-] Armand1@lemmy.world 33 points 1 day ago
[-] turtlesareneat@piefed.ca 12 points 1 day ago

Uh what's the french word for "antibiotic," I need to tell a friend

[-] Armand1@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago
[-] DrBob@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 day ago

La maladie Anglaise.

Seems to me it all came from France

[-] troglodyte_mignon@lemmy.world 31 points 1 day ago

Fun fact : in Strasbourg, there’s a (very pretty) district called Petite France (“Little France”). Its name comes from a former hospital that treated syphilis at a time when Strasbourg was a part of Germany.

[-] Frostbeard@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

Norway is left out because we call it syphilis.

But from now on I will start referring to it as "Danskepesten" (Danish plague)

Edit: autocorrect had changed the made-up word

[-] ClownStatue@piefed.social 14 points 1 day ago

Says a lot about the general consensus about a country that none of your neighboring countries think you could be the source of their rise in an STD. Some countries fuck. Some don’t.

[-] Armand1@lemmy.world 51 points 1 day ago
[-] rustydrd@sh.itjust.works 22 points 1 day ago

Fifth Spidey popping up in the middle: "Bonjour!"

[-] fossilesque@mander.xyz 8 points 1 day ago

Croatia in a chair in the corner.

[-] pruwybn@discuss.tchncs.de 47 points 1 day ago

Scotland was just like "it's everyone else's fault."

[-] Kolanaki@pawb.social 23 points 1 day ago

The koala that was patient zero:

[-] RiceMunk@sopuli.xyz 8 points 1 day ago

That must have been one sexy koala, though, to be fucked by all those french, spaniards, italians, germans, poles, and turks.

[-] NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

We don't know what the origin of syphilis is.

[-] psud@aussie.zone 2 points 1 day ago

It came from the Americas, we swapped it for smallpox

[-] NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago
[-] psud@aussie.zone 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Indeed you didn't, except that that's how I read "what its origin is"

[-] sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 24 points 1 day ago

The Italians were right to blame the French though. They brought it to Italy from the Americas during a military campaign in Naples

[-] Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 day ago

So we're also right to blame the Italians, if they weren't so sexy and promiscuous the disease would have stayed in France ! (/s)

[-] Jankatarch@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Did pland blame germans and turks at the same time?

[-] Infamousblt@hexbear.net 11 points 1 day ago

Finally a different map

[-] muhyb@programming.dev 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Ottoman one should be "French disease" as well though. While Frenk was used as European as in general, it comes from French.

[-] Dicska@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

It was a helluva night.

[-] Jankatarch@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

"It was the ancient France, specifically!"

this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2026
322 points (99.7% liked)

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