VOL. XXXI.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 4^1 



Gascoigne, who was then Chancellor of Oxford, could be no other than vene- 

 real cases. Certain it is, no disease was ever known to be gotten by the carnal 

 conversation of women, which first attacked the genitals, causing a corruption 

 and putrefaction of them, and afterward of the whole frame of the body, but 

 that which is venereal. For nothing is more commonly known at this day, 

 than that after the venereal connection with an impure woman, the penis is the 

 part where the scene is first laid for the succeeding tragical appearances; and 

 there, and in the neighbouring parts, do the symptoms of the disease as its 

 retainers, always first assemble; till the malignant poison taints the blood and 

 other juices ; which being conveyed over the whole frame of the human fabric, 

 if not checked, soon brings about its total corruption. 



What I have further to add in relation to this is, since we do not find that 

 the disease mentioned by Gascoigne was distinguished by any particular name, 

 and that great numbers must unavoidably die of the venereal malady at that 

 time, from the imperfect knowledge of those who had the treatment of the 

 first degrees of it, it must necessarily follow, that when the whole frame of the 

 body had received a taint from the venereal poison, so as to occasion its break- 

 ing out in scabs and ulcers, almost all over its surface, it must generally be 

 called by the name of some particular disease, whose appearances had some- 

 what of an affinity to it. Now if we examine the nature of all the diseases 

 that attack the human body, we shall not find the venereal malady, when it 

 arrives at this state, to bear a greater similitude to any than the leprosy, as it 

 is described by the ancients : nay, so great was the analogy between these dis- 

 eases, that Sebastianus Aquilanus has endeavoured to prove from Galen, Avi- 

 cenna, Pliny, &c. that the pox is only one species of the leprosy ; and Jacobus 

 Cataneus, a writer almost as early as the rise of the name of the pox, tells us 

 it is not only possible there may be a transition from one of these diseases to 

 the other; but that he saw 2 persons in whom the pox was changed into the 

 leprosy; that is, from having large pocks or pustules on the surface of their 

 bodies, from whence the pox is denominated, to have become ulcerous or scabby. 

 This particular state of the disease anciently put the surgeons to a great deal 

 of trouble: for finding that these ulcers were of a very obstinate nature, they 

 were obliged to make use of great numbers of remedies, in order to conquer 

 their bad disposition. But they observed that they were all useless, unless mer- 

 cury was joined with them. Now the dressing each particular ulcer being so 

 very tedious, they ordered the patients to daub the ointments over the parts 

 which were ulcerated; which done they were wrapt in linen cloths, till the 

 next dressing: but after a few days they were extremely surprised, to find their 

 mouths began to be sore, and that they spit very profusely; and they tell us ta 



