[The classical parasite: from appreciative partners of the gods to serving as jesters].
A [pialpharhoalphasigmaiotatauomicronzeta] = parasitos = parasite of the classical Greek antiquity was a tolerated, but not invited co-eater during a guest meal. Usually a parasite was an illegitimate, incapable to inherit or anyway pauperised, free, young man who had to pay for his meal with exhilaration of the guests, adulation, maintenance art, and humiliation. However, during the more than two millennia lasting development of the classical antique society, even this little prestigious profession was preceded by a stupendous development, reflecting an unprecedented devaluation of this socially enforced activity. At the outset of the development there stood the archaic, neolithic social order of Greece, within which a parasitos was the selected partner of the divinity and at the same time a civil servant of a municipality and an outstanding citizen of a community. In the classical antiquity the term parasitos had a socio-political contents above all; the term incorporated itself into the ancient sacral, social, and constitutional spheres. The transformation to a medical word meaning took originally place in the course of an erroneous reception during the 17th century.
Hassl
Andreas
A
Abteilung für Medizinische Parasitologie, Klinisches Institut für Hygiene und Medizinische Mikrobiologie, Medizinische Universität Wien, Wien, Osterreich. andreas.hassl@meduniwien.ac.at
D000818:Animals; D000076145:Greece, Ancient; D049690:History, Ancient; D006801:Humans; D007899:Leisure Activities; D010271:Parasites; D010272:Parasitic Diseases / Q000266:history*; D010274:Parasitology / Q000266:history*; D012067:Religion / Q000266:history*; D009626:Terminology as Topic