( 4 7 ) 
II. A Letter concerning the Antiquity of the Vene- 
real Difeafe. © y Mr. William Becket, Surge- 
on , F. R. S. to William Wagftaffe, M. D. 
S. R. Sc Coll. Med. Lond. Soc. and by hint com- 
municated to the %oyal Society . 
SIR, 
B EFORE I engage in the principal Defign of 
this Letter ; which will be to prove, that the 
Venereal Difeafe, when it came to be confirmed, was 
frequently known among us fome hundreds of Years 
before the Siege of Naples: I (hall endeavour to refute the 
Opinion of thofe Perfons, who believe it to have had its rife 
there, if any fuch fhall remain, who hav eread over my for- 
mer Letter *. True indeed it is, that there have not been 
wanting feveral modern Authors, who have aflerted it; 
but I determine to make it appear to be an Error as 
inconfideratcly, and haftily received, as ftarted by fome 
Chimerical Author; who, becaufe feveral Writers a- 
bout that time, obferving the Difeafe to begin in the 
Pudenda, feparated it from another, with which it was 
before confounded, muft likewife take upon him to 
afiert its being a new Diftempet, and to aflign a cer- 
tain Time and Place for its Rife. Now one might 
with all the Reafon in the World exped, that, if the 
Difeafe had its Original there, it muft have been (o 
certainly and infallibly known, that there could have 
been no doubtful or uncertain Opinions about it, but 
H that 
* Pbiltfopbical ’TranfaRiors, Num. 357. 
