VOL. XXXI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 469 



a substance like a wart growing in the penis, which in another place he says 

 frequently happens; and of another, which had such an excrescence as large as 

 a small strawberry, which, says he, proceeded from the corrupted matter that 

 remained in the urethra. 



And indeed there is not any symptom of the venereal disease, that I find so 

 often mentioned as this of the caruncle, insomuch that it seems to have been 

 more common in those early times than at this day. But this must be certainly 

 owing to the smooth and oily remedies they were continually injecting, which, 

 by their relaxing and softening the fibres of the part, must necessarily dispose 

 the contexture of small blood vessels, lodged at the bottom of the little ulcera- 

 tions, to fill with nutritious juices, and to extend themselves so as to form such 

 fungous excrescences ; and so solicitous were they for removing these incon- 

 veniences, that they made use of several ways by corrosives and other methods, 

 to accomplish this end; and a very early writer among us, has given a methodical 

 and curious tract on this subject, where he recommends removing them by the 

 medicated candle, (bougie) which we use at this day, and lays down divers other 

 instructions in relation to it; which makes it perhaps the best discourse on this 

 subject that was ever yet written. The same author takes notice of those ob- 

 stinate ulcers, which happen on the glans and the neighbouring parts, now 

 called chancres; and the great trouble our ancient surgeons found in attempting 

 their cure, sufficiently shows them to have had their origin from a venereal 

 infection. 



Our early writers are very full in their accounts of these several symptoms of 

 the venereal malady, and of others, when the disease was in a more confirmed 

 state, to which they appropriated particular names, perhaps more significant 

 and expressive than those imposed by modern authors. Thus for instance, the 

 buboes in the groins they called dorsers, for which I have given a reason be- 

 fore ; and the venereal nodes on the shin bones they termed the boonhawe, 

 which gives us a perfect idea, not only of the part affected, but after what 

 manner it was diseased ; for the old English word, hawe, signified a swelling of 

 any part. Thus for instance, a little swelling on the cornea, was anciently 

 called the hawe in the eye ; and the swelling that frequently happens on the 

 finger, on one side the nail, was called the whitehawe, and afterwards whitfiaw 

 or whitlow. The process the last mentioned author recommends, for the cure 

 of the boon or bonehawe, is to use a plaster, which had a hole cut in the 

 middle to circumscribe it, and applying a caustic of unslacked lime, and black 

 soap mcorporated together, which, with plaster and bandage, was to be secured 

 on the part 4 hours, or longer, if that was not found sufficient ; after this he 

 proceeds to separate the slough, &c. This practice of his seems to have been 



