ing by experience that the medicines which were usually given in analogous distempers proved ineffectual, were at a loss what method they should pursue, and for a time gave up the cure of this disease into the hands of quacks and mountebanks."* Swediaur and Benjamin Bell, to whom may be added the name of Mr. Becket, whose paper appeared in the 30th and 31st volumes of the Philosophical Transactions, are strenuous in asserting that the disease prevailed among the Jews, Greeks, and Romans, long antecedent to the discovery of America. Hunter, although he considers it "immaterial to know at what period and in what country this disease arose," states that "the first appearance of this poison is certainly within the period of modern history."† Among the more recent authorities, Mr. Bacot, who has devoted considerable attention to the study of syphilitic diseases, says: "Surely I may be allowed to say that if there is any historical fact that can be said to be proved, it is that of the origin of syphilis being referrible to the latter years of the fifteenth century; for I cannot understand otherwise, why at that precise period we all at once hear of ulcers on the parts of generation in both sexes, followed speedily by excruciating * Astruc on Venereal Diseases, book i., p. 32. nocturnal pains, and very frequently by death; when not one word that can be construed into any similar affection is to be met with distinctly stated by any writer before that period."* Mr. Acton, and on his authority we may add that of M. Ricord, thinks that venereal diseases have probably existed from the most remote ages; at least, the non-virulent class of such affections, as gonorrhea; and he also states that a disease similar to syphilis was known previously to the year 1494. Mr. Carmichael, to whom we are indebted for a clear and scientific classification of the different forms of eruption, included by his predecessors under the generic term of copper-coloured blotches, conceives that venereal complaints existed long before their supposed introduction at the latter end of the fifteenth century; but states that from this period we may date a new form of the disease, "which astonished the practitioners of that day, and spread consternation over every state in Europe."† After so numerous and conflicting opinions, it can scarcely be considered surprising that an author should approach with extreme diffidence, the task of fixing with any degree of accuracy the outbreak of those affections. Indeed, the most that can be expected from historical record, both *Medical Gazette, vol. 2, p. 100. sacred and profane, is to determine whether such disorders were known in the more remote ages of the world, or whether they bear a more modern impress; and in order to decide this fact, it will be necessary to appeal in the first place to scriptural authority. That gonorrhoea was known to the ancients must be sufficiently apparent to any one who has looked into the books of the Old Testament, and more particularly into those passages having special reference to the Levitical laws, which were prescribed about the year 2,400.* That the other forms of venereal diseases were common in the early periods of the world, can likewise, I conceive, be proved from the sacred records, and has been sufficiently substantiated by historians who flourished at an age long anterior to the fifteenth century. The leprosy, a disease so common among the Jews, bears a striking analogy to secondary syphilis of the present day, and an appropriate treatment was assigned to it.f The close approximation of the symptoms of the two diseases has been ably pointed out by Mr. Beckett, in his paper already alluded to. Hippocrates, in his third book, makes mention of symptoms usually attendant upon syphilitic diseases; and Celsus, in his sixth book and eighteenth chapter, describes at considerable length diseases of the *Leviticus, chap. 15. Leviticus, chap. 13; and Proverbs, chap. v. 7-11. genital organs; and with a degree of accuracy calculated to remove any doubt on the mind of the reader, as to the affections referred to. Pliny, Josephus, Herodotus, Lucian, and the Greek historians subsequent to the time of Celsus all make allusion to it; and, in the year 1347, we read of the establishment of public brothels at Avignon, under the sanction and superintendence of Queen Jane, with full regulations for their management. The Chinese physicians were likewise of opinion that venereal diseases had been known in their empire in all ages; and their books of physic written in the Chinese language, which are acknowledged to be very old, are silent as to the first appearance of the disease; "wherefore," says their correspondent, "it is neither known to have been imported from some other country, nor is it very probable." But although history enables us to trace the existence of venereal affections from the earliest period, it must nevertheless be admitted that the disease assumed a much more formidable aspect at the close of the fifteenth century; its destructive ravages first becoming manifest at Naples, (caused, no doubt, by the admixture of the numerous troops) and thence rapidly extending over all Europe. Jerome Fracastorius, the historiographer of that day, accurately details a new and destructive form of the disease, viz. the phagedenic, involving in its ravages the pudenda of the female, a species of ulceration characterized by a disposition to break out afresh, either in the original or adjacent structures, after the healing process had apparently terminated; and we have likewise enumerated, (as we shall perceive, when we come to treat specially of this form of the disease) its usual sequelæ, rupia, affections of the bones, ulceration of the throat, tonsils, &c. by a writer who was ignorant of the connexion existing between the primary and secondary varieties of the disorder, and who had consequently no pre-conceived opinions to support. The intimate relation which the local bear to the constitutional symptoms, was originally taught in the year 1784 by Hunter; who was the first to give anything like a scientific classification of venereal diseases, and whose definition of the true syphilitic chancre that bears his name, must ever remain as a memorial of unparalleled accu racy of observation, emblematic of the descriptive powers of a master mind. It would be easy to enumerate authors and multiply passages in proof of the antiquity of these affections; but the foregoing sketch will, I trust, suffice to shew that they existed in the remote ages of the world, although in many instances loosely and imperfectly described. I shall, therefore, take leave of this part of the subject in the words of Mr. Lawrence:-"I do not lay so great a stress upon the silence of the older writers, as some of those who have considered the subject. It does not appear to me very extraordinary, that they should |