52 
CHARLES F. RING. 
Marcy and Hunt tell us: “This disease was unknown to 
Greek and Roman physicians, as no allusion is made to it by any 
of their medical authors, historians or poets; and much discus¬ 
sion has taken place respecting its first introduction into Europe.” 
All modern authors who first described it (collected by Lm- 
sinus, Astruc and Girtannar) in the latter years of the fifteenth 
century, comment upon it as “ morbus novus,” “ morbus gnatus.” 
Peter Pinator traces the origin of the disease to the time of the 
conjunction of Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Mercury, A.D. 1483, at 
which time he thinks the disease must have originated ; but Ful- 
gosi dates it at October, 1492; Sanchez and Hensler in 1493. 
Others contend that it originated in Hispaniola. It is certain, 
however, that it was first distinctly recognized, says Dr. Simp¬ 
son, of Edinburgh, during the invasion of Italy by the victorious 
army of Charles V III. of France, and it first broke out exten¬ 
sively at Naples when the French took possession of that city in 
the spring of 1495. This army carried the disease with them to 
France, Switzerland, Germany, Flanders, etc. In 1497 it had 
reached Aberdeen, in Scotland. Six months later, the new 
disease was made subject of municipal regulation in Edinburgh. 
“ Gnnbrecht and Brandt wrote in 1496 that the disease had 
already invaded France, Germany and Britain. 
During a great portion of the sixteenth century it was so con¬ 
tagious in some parts of Europe that it was communicated by 
lykig in the same bed, by the clothes, gloves, money, or breath of 
the patient. A variety of syphilis also prevailed in Canada some 
years ago, of so virulent a nature that it was communicated by 
the breath and by contact. 
Professor Simpson, from a historical review of the earliest 
notices of syphilis on record, arrives at the following pathological 
opinion: 
X. That syphilis was a species of disease new to Europe when 
it first excited the attention of physicians and historians in the 
last years of the fifteenth century. 
II. That it is a species of disease distinct and different alike) 
first, from gonorrhoea; and second, from Greek leprosy, (with 
both of which affections it has been occasionally confounded); 
