This site uses cookies. Some of these cookies are essential to the operation of the site, while others help to improve your experience by providing insights into how the site is being used. For more information, please see the ProZ.com privacy policy.
Cookie settings
enquête sur le budget ouvert
brèche digestive

Glossary entry

French term or phrase:

mal de pierre

English translation:

gallstones/kidney stone/stone sickness

Added to glossary by DLyons
Jun 11, 2013 13:19
10 yrs ago
French term

mal de pierre

French to English Art/Literary Poetry & Literature
I include some Google hits for "mal de pierre", but can't work out just what sort of an illness it might be. My impression is that it's some sort of paralysis, but can anyone confirm/deny that? I presume it's the same as "stone sickness" in English "Too soon it pleased God to take to Himself Antonio Carletti, my father, who suffered four continuous months of the stone sickness, which ended by taking his life in the year of 1598" but I can't pin that down either.

"Ce fut pendant Cette mélancholie & cette retraitte qu'on publiòit à la Cour du Duc être causée par un mal de pierre, qui ne lai permettoit pas de se produire ..."
http://books.google.ie/books?id=5hg5AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA198&lpg=PA..."un+mal+de+pierre"

"Saint Benoist apparoit à sainte Marie de Moreruelle. Il guarit miraculeusement l'Empereur Henry II. d'un mal de pierre"
http://books.google.ie/books?id=oRDviKN0bTwC&pg=RA1-PA61&lpg..."un+mal+de+pierre"

"Monseigneur de Telese est malade & tient le lit depuis quatre jours. Le commencement de son indisposition est venu d'un mal de Pierre ..."
http://books.google.ie/books?id=4ml7Be7yU64C&pg=RA1-PA43&lpg..."un+mal+de+pierre"
Proposed translations (English)
4 -1 gallstones
4 +3 kidney stone
4 +1 stone sickness
4 myositis ossificans progressiva
Change log

Jun 13, 2013 18:40: DLyons Created KOG entry

Discussion

DLyons (asker) Jun 13, 2013:
@all Some comments:
<br>
1) I'd actually intended to award the points to Carol (who gave two possible answers), but pressed the wrong button. Sorry!
<br>
2) Paul has responded to the St Benedict link I posted which does say a cure for gallstones, so I think his answer is valid.
<br>
3) Phil's answer is very likely what will end up in the translation after review. I should have posted this question in FR->FR as what I was really asking was what illnesses have been called "mal de pierre" in French.
DLyons (asker) Jun 11, 2013:
@all In my own defence, I don't think this is misleading. I wanted to know what were the possible meanings of "mal de pierre" because I hadn't been able to figure out what either it or "stone sickness" were.

And clearly the Theseus author was using it metaphorically - there are no natural stones which make one pass out in the way he describes. I thought the actual quotation was more likely to mislead than to help.
Carol Gullidge Jun 11, 2013:
fair enough! I was merely trying to provide an explanation of what it may actually have been, since this is what I assumed was being asked for
philgoddard Jun 11, 2013:
You can't translate it as silicosis It means "stone sickness".
Carol Gullidge Jun 11, 2013:
I've changed my plea to Silicosis (or similar) see my added note, plus part of the Wiki article:

The name silicosis (from the Latin silex, or flint) was originally used in 1870 by Achille Visconti (1836-1911), prosector in the Ospedale Maggiore of Milan.[3] The recognition of respiratory problems from breathing in dust dates to ancient Greeks and Romans.[4] Agricola, in the mid-16th century, wrote about lung problems from dust inhalation in miners. In 1713, Bernardino Ramazzini noted asthmatic symptoms and sand-like substances in the lungs of stone cutters.
philgoddard Jun 11, 2013:
I think this question is thoroughly misleading, and doesn't make sense unless you read the discussion entries. If you still need a translation (though its meaning seems pretty obvious to me), you should repost it without including all that extra context, which is not relevant.
DLyons (asker) Jun 11, 2013:
I didn't think it was going to help, but here it is:

"... ils s'engagèrent sous une forêt de hautes colonnes qui répandait un terrible parfum de pierres. Ces effluves donnaient la nausée et l'ombre tombait des chapiteaux sur les corps nus en majestueuses draperies de glace. [...] Thésée, aussi fort que ses compagnons, perdait cœur sous un « mal de pierre » innommable, atroce, sans rapport avec aucune angoisse connue."
Emma Paulay Jun 11, 2013:
In context? Could you give us the actual sentence from your Theseus story?
Carol Gullidge Jun 11, 2013:
not knowing that this was about Theseus put us ALL off track, methinks!

Just shows the need for context right at the beginning
DLyons (asker) Jun 11, 2013:
@all ^&%*^%* Theseus again. The victims are overcome by some sort of noxious fumes from stone columns and faint. Fair enough, the author does put "mal de pierre" in inverted commas to indicate his little joke, but it sent me off searching the Labryinth of the Internet on a completely fausse piste.

I specifically filtered out Milena Agus from my search!!!

Proposed translations

-1
4 mins
Selected

gallstones

Peer comment(s):
disagree philgoddard : Sorry, but this is wrong in the context.
2 days 4 hrs
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thanks Paul. That got me on to the right track."
+3
5 mins

kidney stone

according to this:

Mal de pierres - Milena Agus - Le Blog des Livres
www.leblogdeslivres.com/?2007/05/...mal-de-pierres...‎
Translate this page
May 16, 2007 – La jeune sarde est atteinte du *** mal de pierre, plus vulgairement connu sous le nom de calculs aux reins***. Mais à vrai dire, ce n'est pas cela qui la


Anyway, it's excruciating, so they say...



--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 25 mins (2013-06-11 13:44:48 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------



OK, given the new context, I propose SILICOSIS (or something similar) - perhaps along the lines of what the Spanish prisoners suffered when being forced to work on Franco's monument...

From Wiki: The name silicosis (from the Latin silex, or flint) was originally used in 1870 by Achille Visconti (1836-1911), prosector in the Ospedale Maggiore of Milan.[3] The recognition of respiratory problems from breathing in dust dates to ancient Greeks and Romans.[4] Agricola, in the mid-16th century, wrote about lung problems from dust inhalation in miners. In 1713, Bernardino Ramazzini noted asthmatic symptoms and sand-like substances in the lungs of stone cutters.
Reference:

http://https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?source=search_app#sclient=psy-ab&q=%22mal+de+pierre%22&oq=%22mal+de+pierre%22&gs_l=hp.12..0i22i30l4.83

Note from asker:
Thanks Carol. Silicosis especially interesting.
Peer comment(s):
agree jmleger : C'est la gravelle de Montaigne
20 mins
merci jmleger!
agree Helen Hagon : I found the same reference to this book, a translation from the Italian 'Mal di pietre', about a woman who suffers from kidney stones during pregnancy
46 mins
thanks helen! Poor thing - as if you need that sort of complication in pregnancy... :(
agree Verginia Ophof
6 hrs
thanks Verginia!
Something went wrong...
1 hr

myositis ossificans progressiva

see Termium.
As you mentioned paralysis, I think it might suit this disease. (In French: maladie de l'homme de pierre ou fibrodysplasie ossifiante)
Note from asker:
Thanks piazza d. Don't think I'd have found that one myself!
Something went wrong...
+1
2 hrs

stone sickness

It's nothing to do with gallstones, kidney stones, or myosotis. The context, which the asker has provided in the discussion entries, is the sickness suffered by Theseus and his followers as a result of inhaling fumes given off by stones. I think it would be wrong to translate it in any other way, or to speculate on what these fictional characters might have been suffering from.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 2 hrs (2013-06-11 15:47:40 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

D Lyons: I think you're still missing the point. This is a mythical disease that causes people to faint when they inhale fumes. It's meaningless to try and diagnose what real disease it refers to - it would be like discussing whether Methusaleh's longevity was diet related.
Note from asker:
Thanks Phil. There are two issues - the first is the one which mainly concerns me: what illness(es) does this term refer to. The second is how should I translate it, and there I probably agree with you (I've posted a Q in EN->EN as to what illness(es) does the English term refer to.) In retrospect, maybe I should have posted this in FR->FR.
Of course. But I'll be happier when I know the correlates in both languages.
Peer comment(s):
agree Sheri P : especially given the quotes around the term and the description that follows it (in the discussion box)
5 mins
Something went wrong...
Close search
Term search
  • All of ProZ.com
  • Term search
  • Jobs
  • Forums
  • Multiple search