190 AKTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book IL 



The next difeafe I fhall mention undoubtedly continues to be dill a 

 ftanding plague among us ; I mean the fmall-pox, whicli came like- 

 wife from the Eaft, and particularly from Arabia ; and it is faid 

 that the Arabians brought it with them into Spain, from whence it 

 has been propagated all over Europe. It is the mofl univerfal plague 

 which ever has been among men ; for very few efcape it : And it 

 was at firft fo mortal, that it was computed to deftroy one four- 

 teenth part of the human race * ; and thofe that efcaped death had 

 their faces disfigured, and were no doubt weakened in their perfons. 

 Where inoculation is ufed, this difeafe is feldom mortal ; but I cannot 

 be perfuaded that it does not, in fome degree, weaken and impair 

 the habit. The remedy of inoculation came originally from Cir- 

 cafia ; for the difeafe has fpread all over Afia, even to China. 



The laft of thefe permanent difeafes I fhall mention, and which I 

 vcall plagues, becaufe they are contagious, has contributed to the ruin 

 of the human body more, and to the degeneracy of the race, than 

 any I have yet mentioned, becaufe it attacks the very feat of genera- 

 tion. By this the reader will know that I mean the venereal difeafe. 

 It is generally believed to have come from the Weft Indies. But, if 

 the fad be true, and I never heard it difputed, that it made its firft 

 appearance in Europe at the fiege of Naples, in 1493, it is im- 

 pofTible it could have come from thence ; for Columbus did not fet 

 out for his difcovery of the Weft Indies till the month of Auguft 

 1492 ; and, befides, there is not the leaft probability that it ftiould 

 have been in a country where men lived in the greateft innocence and 

 fimplicity of manners, and which, from the ftate of civilization the 

 people were in, appears to me to have been but newly inhabited. 

 I think, therefore, it muft have come, like the other difeafes I have 



mentioned, 



• Encyclopedic, under the article Tdro/ PtViV. 



