ROCKY MOUNTAIN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. lOI 
America, is ignoring history and prejudges the ques- 
tion. Abundant evidence is to be found throughout 
the old chronicles and the early general and profes- 
sional literature of the existence of a disease which it 
is probable a more exact and enlightened pathology 
had recognized as syphilis ages before Columbus was 
born. Indeed, the earliest writers on this disease did 
not attribute its origin to America. That the sailors 
and soldiers who made early voyages to the New 
World lived dissolute lives and were perhaps treated 
for this disease and died in European hospitals is very 
probable. But the evidence is entirely wanting that 
it either existed among the native Indians of 
North America or in Mexico until after it was intro- 
duced from the Old World.'^ 
You are aware of the character of the discussions 
that have taken place on this subject for nearly four 
centuries without reaching a conclusion. I shall there- 
fore not attempt to recapitulate those arguments pro 
or con^ but will present a few facts recently brought to 
de Gordonia, who died in 1305; and Joannes ab Arderne in 1360. 
Slow's burvey of London, vol. 2, page 7, contains a copy of the 
rules and regulations estabhshed by Parliament, in the eighth year 
of Henry 11, 338 years before the voyage of Columbus, in regard 
to the licensea stews ot Souihwark, in which is loundthe followmo- : 
*'Mo stewholder shall keep any woman who hath the perilous in- 
hrmily ot burning." 
Those interested in the question of the early history of syphilis 
will hnd an admirable chronological list of the earliest publications on 
this subject in John Astruc's Treatise of Venereal Diseases, 4to. 
London, 1756. The question of the American origin of syphilis has 
been well discussed by Clavigero in his third volume of the history of 
Mexico^ Philadelphia edition of 181 7. 
