l u 
upon the manuscript rules and ordinances effi the (tews, 
which were by public authority allowed to be kept at 
London, in the Borough of Southwark, under the con- 
troul of the bilhop of Wincbefter. Thefe documents are 
fuppofed to have been drawn up about the year 1430. 
One of them begins thus: “Of thofe, who keep women 
having a wicked infirmity.” And further, it is ordered, 
under a fevere penalty, that no itew-holder keep any wo¬ 
man “ wythin his hous that hath any fycknefs of bren¬ 
ning.” See vol. ii. p. 818. 
The celebrated Dr. Alfruc, on the other hand, has de¬ 
duced a different inference from thefe productions, with¬ 
out denying that they may be authentic; for he will not 
admit that this burning was the fame difeafe as a venereal 
gonorrhoea, or that a venereal gonorrhoea was at any time 
expreffed by fuch a term. Kis arguments are fupported 
by confiderations of the following kind. 1. -The leprofy 
of the Arabians, which was formerly a common difeafe 
in England, as well as in other parts of Europe, was ex¬ 
ceedingly contagious and infectious ; and, therefore, le¬ 
pers were, by feveral fevere ediCts, prohibited from hav¬ 
ing intercourfe with the reft of mankind. In cafe any 
had carnal knowledge of a leprous woman, the leprofy 
was communicated to him by aimed immediate infection. 
3. When the cafe did not turn out to be leprofy in the 
word form, yet the pudenda were for the moll part affedfed 
with an inflammation, eryfipelas, herpetic or miliary ex- 
ulcerations, cuticular eruptions, &c. whence arofe a dyfu- 
ria, called, in old language, ardor, arfura, incendium, cale- 
faElio , and, in Englifh, brenning. Upon the whole, Altruc 
infers that the burning, or brenning, referred to by Mr. Bec- 
ket, was the fame dif'order as might arife from connexion 
with a leprous woman, or one who had lately cohabited 
with a leprous man. As for the nefanda injirmitas men¬ 
tioned in the laws of the ftews, Dr. Aftruc conceives it 
mult have been the leprofy itlelf. De Morb. Fe nereis. 
We {hall not follow thefe gentlemen through the 
whole of their arguments. The nioft important are fet 
before the reader, and he mult judge of them himfelf. 
That difeharges from the urethra, attended with heat and 
p3in in making water, mult have exilled from time im¬ 
memorial, we decidedly believe ; becaufe experience has 
well proved that fuch complaints may often proceed from 
caufes which are decidedly not venereal. Becket, we 
think, has fully proved that inflammations, difeharges, 
&c. exilted long before the year 1494; but his evidence 
fails in eftablilhing that they were actually venereal. Altruc 
himfelf has very (enfibly remarked, “that the genitals are 
no lei's fubjeft to violent difeafes than the other parts of 
the body, that they are equally expoled to all the caufes 
of indifpofition, and that they enjoy no prerogative above 
the reft to guard them againft the attack of dift’empers. 
From the very infancy ot phyfic, and long before the vene¬ 
real difeafe was known, feveral writers have treated at 
large of an abfeefs, ulcer, cancer, and mortification, in the 
genitals.” The phimofis, parapbimofis, and hyperfarcofis, 
or caruncle of the urethra, among other cafes, were un¬ 
doubtedly known to the Greek phyficians ; but then, thefe 
diforders proceeded from an ordinary caufe, and not from 
any venereal contagion, as will be plain to any one who 
will take the trouble to confult the old writers. 
Difmifling the idea of the venereal difeafe being fo an¬ 
cient as fome have fuppofed, let us examine what grounds 
there are for believing that the clofe of the fifteenth cen¬ 
tury was the era, when the diforder firft commenced its 
ravages in Europe. The authorities in lupport of the 
opinion, that the venereal diftemperfirft made its appearance 
in this quarter of the world towards the latter end of the 
year 1494, are the united teftimonies of all the medical 
w riters whoatthat time flourilhed in Italy, and who could 
not confound it with the leprofy, w hich,being then a com¬ 
mon difeafe, was well known to them. The practitioners 
«®f that period wereaftonilhed at the novelty of the malady ; 
and finding, from the experience, that the medicines, 
which were ufually given in analogous cafes, proved in- 
E S. 
effectual, were at a lofs what method to purfue, and, fora 
time gave up the treatment into the hands of quacks. 
Joleph Grunpech, a German phyfician, publifhed, in 
the year 1496, Trail alum de P ejlilentiali Scorra, five Malade 
Frantzos, in which he affirms, that it was a dileafe fo lately 
inflifted on mankind, that it feemed to be a plague lent 
down from heaven; that it wag, anew kind of difeafe, 
hateful to nature, a molt horrid and terrible prodigy,and 
altogether known to mortals before that time. Alexan¬ 
der Benediff of Verona, who was phyfician in the Venetian 
army, which Charles VIII. of France deftroyed in the bat¬ 
tle of Fornova, in the year 1495, and therefore had the 
opportunity ofobferving the firlt appearance of this new 
dileafe, afl'erts in his work, De omnibus Morbis, pubiilhed 
in 1496, that, “ by the venereal contadl, a new French 
difeale, or, at leaft, one that w'ak unknown to former phy¬ 
ficians, owing to the pejlferous afpeEl of the Jlars, had burlt in 
upon them from the welt;” and, in another part of his 
work, that “ the French difeale, a new plague which had 
fprung up in the world, contracted by lying together and 
contact, w'as reckoned in his time incurable.” Nicola* 
Leonicenus of Vicenza, profeflbr of phyfic at Ferrara, in a 
treatife which he w rote in 1496, De Morbo Galileo, obferves, 
that “new difeafes had appeared in Italy, which were un¬ 
known to former ages,after the manner of the lichenis, which, 
according to Pliny, Hift. Nat. lib. xvi. were never known 
before the time of Claudius.” Then he continues: “ Some¬ 
thing like this has happened in this age; for now a new 
difeafe, of an unufual nature, has attacked Italy and fe¬ 
veral other countries: however, this dileafe has obtained 
no proper name hitherto by our prefent phyficians, but 
they commonly call it the French difeafe; as if the con¬ 
tagion had been imported by the French into Italy, and 
that this country was infefted 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 otherwile,) that this infectious difeafe, which has 
lately fprung up, has harafled this prefent age as it never 
did any former one.” Coradinus Gilinus, in hisOpufcu- 
lum de Morbo Gallico, begins thus : “ Lalt year (1496) a 
very violent difeafe attacked great numbers of people, 
both in Italy and on the other fide of the mountains, 
which the Italians call the French dileafe, affirming that 
the French introduced it into Italy ; which the French call 
the Italian or Neapolitan difeafe, becaufe, they fay, they 
were firft infefted in Italy, and efpecially at Naples, with 
this cruel plague 5 or, becaule the diieale appeared firft in 
Italy at the time of the pafiage of the French over the 
mountains. And as this dileafe is yet unknown to the 
moderns, and there have been, and ltill fubfilt, great de¬ 
bates about it amongft phyficians, I have therefore de¬ 
termined to write foinething upon it.’^ 
That the venereal difeafe firlt began to make ravages ia 
Europe, and in particular that it afflicted many foldiers or 
the army of Charles VIII. at the liege of Naples, towards 
the dole of the fifteenth century, appear* then to he 
proved beyond dilpute. But (till other qneltiona remain 
for determination. Was the venereal infeflion originally 
produced in Italy? or, was it conveyed thither from Ame¬ 
rica, which had been dilcovered a little before the break¬ 
ing out of the diltemper in Europe ? 
We learn from liiliory, that the new world was firft 
found out by Chriltopher Columbus. In Auguft 1492, 
he fet fail with three {hips and iao men, arrived at Hil- 
paniola in December of the fame year, and returned to 
Spain in March 1493. On the 25th of September follow¬ 
ing, he departed from Cadiz again with feventeen fliip* 
and 1300 men, befides mariners and workmen; and, in 
November, he arrived once more at Hilpaniola. In the 
following year, 1494, he difpatched fourteen (hips back to 
Spain. In April 1494, Bartholomew Columbus, the bro¬ 
ther of Chriltopher, arrived at Hilpaniola w ith three (hips, 
which returned to Spain, about the conclufion of the fame 
year, with Pedro de Margarit, a Catalonian gentleman, 
and father Bayl, a Benedictine monk : the former was, at 
that 
