LUES VENEREA. 



are known to have prevailed to a very great extent ? As 

 we {hall be obliged to touch upon this liibjeft again, and 

 have already mentioned it in the article Gonouuh(KA, we 

 (hall not piirfiie it at prefent. Tn our opinion, Bcckct has 

 fully proved tiiat inflanmiations, difcharges, &c. exilled long 

 before the year 1494 ; but his evidence fails in ellablifliing 

 tliat they were adlually venereal. 



Allruc himfelF has very fenfibly remarked, '•' tliat the 

 genitals are no lefs fubjett to violent difeafes than the other 

 parts of the bodv, that they are equally cxpofcd to all the 

 caufes of indilpofition, and that they enjoy no prerogative 

 above the rell to guard them againll the attack of dillempcrs. 

 From the very infancy of phy-Cc, and long before the vene- 

 real difeafe was known, feveral writers have treated at large 

 of an abfcefs, ulcer, cancer, and moitilication in the genitals." 

 (See Galen, lib. vi. de locis affectis, cap. f), and Cornelius 

 Celfus, lib. ii. cap. j. lib. v. cap. 20. and lib. vi. cap. 18.) 

 Aftruc alfo quotes the hillorian Flavins .lofephus, who, in 

 his I'econd book againll Apion, related, that that vile 

 flandercr of the Jews was affliftcd with an ulcer in the 

 penis, of which difeafe, after feveral incifions to no purpofe, 

 he died in exquifite torments, the genital parts being mor- 

 tified. And again, (Hill. Jud. lib. xvii. cap. 8.) he fays, 

 that Herod, kmg of the Jews, died confumptive and con- 

 vulfed, his private parts being putrelied and eaten up by 

 worms. Allruc likewife quotes palTages from Eufcbius, 

 Pliny, and other ancient authors, fliewing, beyond all doubt, 

 that complaints and difeafes of the generative organs exilled 

 and prevailed in the earliell tmies. The phimolls, paraphi- 

 mofis, and hyperfarcofis, or caruncle of the urethra, among 

 •)ther cafes, were undoubtedly known to the Greek phy- 

 ficians ; but then, thefe diforders proceeded from an ordi- 

 nary caufe, and not from any venereal contagion, as will be 

 plain to any one who will take the trouble to confult the 

 old writers. 



Difmiifing the idea of the venereal difeafe being fo ancient 

 as fome have fuppofed, let us examine what grounds there 

 are for believing that the dole of the fifteenth century was 

 the era, when the diforder firlt commenced its ravages in 

 Europe. 



The authorities in fupport of the opinion, that the venereal 

 diftemper lirll made its appearance in this quarter of the 

 world towards the latter end of the year 1494, are the 

 united ti-(limonies of all the medical writers who at that time 

 iloiirilhed in Italy, and who could not confound it with the 

 leprofy, which, being then a common difeafe, was well 

 known to them. The practitioners of that period were 

 ailonilhed at the novelty of the malady ; and finding, from 

 experience, that the medicines, which were ufually given in 

 analogous cafes, proved ineffectual, were at a lofs what 

 method to purfue, and, for a time, gave up the treatment 

 into the hands of quacks. 



Jofeph Grunpech, a German phyfician, pnblilhed, in the 

 year 1496, " Traftatum de Peflilentiali Scorrse, five Mala- 

 de Frantzos," in which he affirms, that it was a difeafe fo 

 lately inflicled on mankind, that it feemed to be a plague 

 fent down from heaven ; that it was a new kind of difeafe, 

 hatefid to nature, a molt horrid and terrible prodigy, and 

 altogether unknown to mortals before that time. 



Alexander Benedict of Verona, who was phyfician in the 

 Venetian army, which Charles VIII. of France deflroyed 

 in the battle of Fornova, in the year 1495, and therefore 

 had tl'" opportunity of nbferving the firft appearance of this 

 new difoafe, alFerts in his work, " De omnibus Morbis," 

 publifhed in 1496, that, " by the venereal contaft, a new 

 French difeafe, or, at Icalt, one that was unknown to former 

 f hyiicians, owing to the peftiferous alpeft of the liars, had 



bnrd in upon them from the wefl ;" and, in another part of 

 his work, that " the French difeafe, a new plague whicii 

 had fprung up in the world, contrtnfted by lying together 

 and contaft, was reckoned in his time incurable." 



Nicolas Lconicenus of Vicenv.a, profelfor of phyfic at 

 Ferrara, in a treatife, which he wrote in 1496, " De Morbo 

 Gallico," obferves, that " new difeafe; had appeared in 

 Italy, which were unknown to former ages, after the man- 

 ner of the lichcnis, which, according to Pliny, Ilill. Nat. 

 lib. xvi. were never known before the time of Claudius." 

 Then he continues: " Something like this has happened in 

 this age ; for now a new difeale, of an unufual nature, has 

 attacked Italy, and feveral other coinitries ; however, this 

 difeafe has obtained no proper name hitherto by our prefent 

 phylicians, but they commonly call it the French difeafe ; 

 as if the contagion had been imported by the French into 

 Italy, and that this country was infelled both by the difeafe 

 and the arms of France at the fame .time. I, for my part, 

 am forced to believe, (nor, indeed, can I conceive the cafe 

 to be otherwife,) that this infeftious difeafe, which has 

 lately fprung up, has haraffed this prefent age as it never did 

 any former om." 



Coradinus Gilinus, in his " Opufculum de Morbo Gal- 

 lico," begins thus : 



" Lall year (1496) a very violent difeafe attacked great 

 numbers of people, both in Italy and on the other fide of 

 the mountain':, which the Italians call the Freneli difeafe, 

 affirming that the French introduced it into Italy ; which 

 the French call tiie Italian or Neapolitan difeafe, becaufe, 

 they fav, they were firll infetled in Italy, and elpecialiy at 

 Naples, with tliis cruel plague ; or, becaufe the difeafe ap- 

 peared firll in Italy, at the time of the paffageof the French 

 over the mountains. And as this difeafe is yet unknown to 

 the moderns, and there have been, and Ilill fubfitt great de- 

 bates about it amongll phyficians, I have therefore deter- 

 mined to write fomething upon it." 



Dr. Allruc further confirms the opinion, that the difeafe 

 was regarded quite as a novelty at the clofe of the fifteenth 

 century, by numerous other citations from the works of the 

 medical writers, who publifhed within a moderate fpaca 

 after that period : as, tor inllance, Bartholomew Montag- 

 nana, Gafper Torella, Anthony Bonevenius, Wendelinua 

 Hock de Brackenaw, Jacobus Cataneus, Peter Trapolinus, 

 John de Vigo, Peter Maynard of Verona, Ulrich Utten, a 

 German knight, who publifhed his own cure by guaiacum, 

 James \\ Bothincourt, Lawrence Phrifius, Peter Andrew 

 Matthioliis, Alphonfus Ferrus, Jerome Fracaflorius, An- 

 thony Mufa Braflavolu?, Gabriel Fallopius, kc. 



Not only is the foregoing fiatement corroborated by 

 medical writers, it receives additional tcllimonials from fe- 

 veral hifiorians ; particularly Mark Anthony Coccius Sa- 

 bellicus, in KhapCod. Hill. lib. ix. firfl publidied at Venice 

 in IJ02 ; Baptill Fidgofiuf, in his treatife on Memor- 

 able Actions, written in 1509 ; Jean de Bourdigne, in his 

 Hiflory of the Province of Aiijou, publifhed 1529; Guic- 

 ciardini, in his Hiflory of Italy, 5:c. 



That the venereal difeafe firll began to make ravages in 

 Europe, and in particular that it afHifted many foldiers of 

 the army of Charles VIII. at the fiege of Naples, towards 

 the clofe of the fifteenth century, appears then to be proved 

 beyond difpute. But Ilill other qnellions remain for deter- 

 mination. Was the venereal infeclion originalJy produced 

 in Italy? or, was it conveyed thither from .America, which 

 had been difcovered a little before the breaking out of the 

 dlilemper in Europe ? 



We learn from hillory, that the new world was firft found 

 out by Chriltopher Columbus. In Augull 1492, lie fet 



fail 



