lOO 
toner's address. 
To assume, as many authors have done, that this 
disease was unknown until after the discovery of 
inaccuracies by contemporary writers, such as A. Herrera, De la Casa, 
Ferdinando Columbus, and others. For this reason, and because he 
was not a physician, his testimony should be received with caution. 
That syphilis did not exist in the New World till after the third voyage 
of Columbus, 1498, is pretty well established, and that it was carried 
there from the sea-port cities of Spain is probable. Indeed, Swediaur 
has made these assertions. (See Copeland, vol. 3, p. 1462.) Where 
and at what time it first appeared is uncertain, but that it did spread, 
according to all testimony, with great rapidity to all the cities of Eu- 
rope shortly after the discovery of America, is certain. It was seen as 
early as 1490 by Fracastorio, and by Fulgori in 1492. It is men- 
tioned in the Mansfield Chronicle, the Leising Chronicle, the Leipsic 
Annals, and the Zweifalt Annals, as being prevalent in Germany in 
the summer of 1493. It was common in Auvergne in 1493, Paris 
in 1494, and in Augsburg in 1495, in Memmingen, at Nurnberg, 
and in Edinburgh in 1496, and spread through Bohemia in 1499. 
(Copeland, vol. 3, p. 1464, says that syphilis is identical with the 
African " Yaws," which is indigenous among the negro races, thence 
spreading to the Moors and Jews in North Africa, and thence conveyed 
into Spain and Portugal ages before its spreading into France and 
Italy.) 
It has been suggested, and with much plausibility, that although the 
period of the spread of syphilis was associated with the discovery of 
America, yet it should be more strictly connected with the period of 
expulsion of the Moors from Spain, of whom, although the bulk 
retired to Africa, some found refuge in Italy and resided outside the 
Appian gate at Rome. 
Hippocrates speaks of a disease in which there were ulcers on the 
genitals, general pustules, and loss of the hair, and Celsus speaks of the 
hard and soft chancre. Chinese literature on this point bears testimony 
that syphilis existed there and was treated with mercury before the 
Christian era. Biblical scholars discover in the most ancient of books 
references to diseases of the genitals and of secondary effects, which, 
though of course difficult to prove, strongly resemble syphilis. Ac- 
counts of some of the symptoms of syphilis are given by Gulielmus 
de Salicetoas early as 1270; Valescus de Tarantain 1418 : Bernardus 
