Syphilis
early 18th century: modern Latin, from Syphilis, sive Morbus Gallicus, the title of a Latin poem (1530), from the name of the character Syphilus, the supposed first sufferer of the disease.
wiktionary
From New Latin syphilis, originally the title of a poem by Girolamo Fracastoro concerning “Syphilus”, a shepherd boy who insulted the Greek god Apollo and was punished by that god with a horrible disease.
etymonline
syphilis (n.)
infectious venereal disease, 1718, Modern Latin, originally from the title of a poem, "Syphilis, sive Morbus Gallicus" "Syphilis, or the French Disease," published 1530, by Veronese doctor Girolamo Fracastoro (1483-1553), which tells the tale of the shepherd Syphilus, supposed to be the first sufferer from the disease. Fracastoro first used the word as a generic term for the disease in his 1546 treatise "De Contagione." Why he chose the name is unknown; it may be intended as Latinized Greek for "Pig-lover," though there was also a Sipylus, a son of Niobe, in Ovid.
