tion of the disease, because the ancients were ignorant of several of its features. But numerous quotations show it was well known that certain local affections were communicated by impure intercourse. They are so clearly described, that they appear identical with what we now know to occur in the outset of syphilis. Other diseases of a constitutional character are also described, such as caries and ulcers of the fauces, which physicians of that epoch attributed to being, in some obscure manner, consequences of intercourse with diseased persons.

It must not be forgotten that syphilis does not always immediately attract the attention of those inoculated to its presence, for the immediate effects, in many instances, quickly heal without any treatment. This character adds difficulty to the task of demonstrating a connection between the later forms of the disease and those of its invasion. Only lately, even, several obstinate affections of the skin, prevailing in different parts of the world, called variously sibbens, yaws, radezyge, &c., have been shown to be simply varieties of syphilis; previously, they were believed to be totally distinct from it, in spite of some attempts by older observers to point out their true nature.

Literature of remote antiquity. - The earliest notice of syphilis, hitherto met with in the literature of India, is in a Sanscrit treatise of medicine, written at the commencement of our era, entitled the "Ayurvedas" of Suçrutas, and translated into Latin by Dr. Hessler,1 a copy of which is in the British Museum. In the chapter on diseases of the pudenda, Suçrutas describes, as consequences thereof, certain cutaneous affections, ulcers, ophthalmia, eruptions of the sole and palm, pustules of the scalp, swellings of the groin and

Suçrutas, Ayurvedas, id est medicinæ systema venerabili Dhanvantare demonstratum, a Suçrutas discipulo compositum. Nunc primum ex sanscrito in latinum sermonem vertit Fr. Hessler. Erlangen, 1844-1850.

armpit, &c. (Vol. I., ch. xiii. p. 196). Elsewhere he says that buboes should be allowed to open themselves; also, that sloughy parts of the penis should be removed with the knife, and the wounds anointed with oil. Follin appears inclined to accept this description of venereal disease in the "Ayurvedas," as quite satisfactory that the Hindoos understood the connection between general syphilis and local disease. From my examination of the "Ayurvedas," it seems to me that the writer attributed the affections he describes, as much to the consequence of dirty habits as to any special poison transmitted from patient to patient; and the picture of the consequences of venereal taint is not a very close description of ordinary syphilis. Hence, though this evidence must not be altogether rejected, it is hardly conclusive.

Hippocrates mentions various affections which correspond to those belonging to constitutional syphilis, but does so without distinctly ascribing to them a venereal origin. The Greek and Latin physicians whose works remain to us, also describe with more or less exactness the local ulcerations of the genital organs. Celsus, in chap. xviii. of lib. vi., describes phimosis, and the ulcers one often finds on turning back the foreskin, which he even separates into the clear dry ulcer, and the moist suppurating one. He also observes that some ulcers spread deeply and widely; but the evidence of Celsus might be more distinct on this point. It is not plain he was not describing cancers, and ordinary ulcers of the genitals. Aretæus mentions, without giving it a venereal origin, sloughing of the uvula and soft palate, &c. In Galen, the two following constitutional affections are mentioned, psoriasis scroti, and periosteal pain of so deep. and fixed a kind, that the patient believed the disease was in the interior of the bone. This, even in Galen's day, had received the name of osteoscopic pain. Oribasis de

scribes two moist and dry ulcers of the pudenda and anus. Aetius also ascribes to aloes, used as a local application, the virtue of healing sluggish ulcers, fissures, and carbuncles of the anus and pudenda. Lastly, Marcellius Empiricus speaks of ulcers of the tibia, which eat their way inwards. These quotations, which have been collected by Casenave, Follin, and others writing more recently still, are held by them to be sufficient proof that the ancients were familiar with contagious ulcers of the genitals, and that there were in their time two species of sore, the dry and the moist, which correspond to our infecting and non-infecting chancres. Be this as it may, there can be no doubt that those who contracted venereal ulcers were also sometimes sufferers from other bodily ailments, closely resembling the syphilitic eruptions of the present day.

The satiric or erotic poems furnish abundant allusion to, and even descriptions of, venereal diseases, not only of the genitals, but of the mouth, face, groin, &c. In the poems of Martial, Juvenal, and the Priapeia, mention is made, also, of these constitutional diseases being communicated by kissing as well as by sexual intercourse.

The various myths relating to the introduction of the worship of the god Lingam from India, and of Priapus into Greece, are important proofs of the ancients being thoroughly aware that sexual intercourse with infected persons communicated the disease to those so indulging. It is recounted in the Myth of Lingam that this scourge, originating in Çiva, was propagated thenceforth by transmission from

women to men.

The sacred writings of the Bible contain no trustworthy account of venereal diseases. They merely furnish a few allusions to venereal affections of uncertain character.

Klein, in a Latin treatise on the mode of treatment practised in India for the cure of the venereal disease,

written in 1795, states that Malabar physicians, who wrote about the tenth century, describe in their books, not only the disease Syphilis, but also its cure by mercury.

The amount of knowledge of venereal disease thus proved to have existed among the Hindoos, Greeks, Alexandrians, and Romans, may be fairly held to equal that possessed by them of other diseases that are still extant, of which the existence at that period is denied by no one.

The ancient medical literature of China is expected to furnish convincing proof of the antiquity of syphilis, but, as yet, indisputable evidence has not been obtained thence. Recently, le Capitaine Dabry1 has published a work on Chinese Medicine, consisting chiefly of translations of their medical treatises. Verneuil has written an excellent digest of this translation, for the "Archives Gén. de Médecine, 1863," vol. ii. p. 625, whence my information is derived.

According to Dabry, the Emperor Ho-Ang-Ti, who reigned 2637 years B.C., caused the medical writings of that day to be collected into a systematic treatise, which still exists, and has been amended from time to time, but it does not appear from Dabry's book whether an original edition still exists; his intention is rather to give an account of the present condition of Chinese medical knowledge than to trace the antiquity of their doctrines. Notwithstanding these emendations, little change seems to have taken place until quite recently, in their knowledge of disease for 2000 years. Therefore, it is probable that the very complete description of venereal disease in this book has at least that much antiquity.

Gonorrhoea was distinctly described by Ho-Ang-Ti himself 4500 years ago; and the later editions contain clear accounts of chancre, phimosis, bubo, ulcers of the tonsil,

1 La Médecine chez les Chinois, par le Capitaine Dabry, Consul de France, &c., 8vo. Henri Plon, Paris, 1863.

sores around the anus, coppery eruptions of the skin, ulcers of the nose, and the cure of them by mercury. Even remedies for mercuric ptyalism are not omitted. Such evidence is very strongly in favour of the great antiquity of syphilis. Still, in consequence of Dabry not being aware of the importance his account of Chinese medicine would have in settling the question, he does not expressly state how early this precise knowledge of constitutional syphilis was possessed in China. Further researches will no doubt set this point at rest.

Syphilis in the Middle Ages.-Little of the medical literature of this period remains. Daremberg1 quotes a manuscript of the ninth century, now in the Imperial Library at Paris, which contains a very complete enumeration of ulcers, fissures, warts, and condylomata, of the anus; these affections, it further says, may also spread to or affect the genitals. In the thirteenth century, Richard the Salernitan, called by a host of names besides, in a "parvus micrologus," says that the penis and testicles often ulcerate from contact with the foul inflammatory humours secreted during menstruation. These ulcers, he remarks, are distinguished from others by their colour, by pustules of the skin, by the discharge, and by their itching, pricking, and heat. William of Saliceto also speaks of ulcers and fissures, which attack the penis after intercourse with a foul woman, or a prostitute. In mentioning buboes, he describes the acute and indolent swellings of the groin, and says they are named "bubones," or" dragoncelli," and come when the penis is corrupted through coitus with a filthy infected woman, or from any other cause. Clerc thinks this only shows that the ulcers, &c., of the penis were not specific, but the consequence of common irritation.

1 Annales de la Syphilis, vol. iv., p. 275.

2 Traité des Maladies Vénériennes. Paris, 1866. Premier fascicule, p. 256.