AN INQUIRY. 
107 
and distinct disease, dates frum the end of the fifteenth century, 
from that notorious and epidemic-like outbreak of the disease in 
Italy, between the years 1490 and 1500. From the numerous 
writings which appeared in the latter part of the fifteenth century 
and in the beginning of the sixteenth, it is evident that the phy¬ 
sicians regarded it as a new disease. Its origin is, by common 
consent, traced by them to the army of Charles VIII. of France, 
who had been in Italy since September, 1494, and in 1494-5 was 
besieging Naples. The disease is reported (according to J. De 
Vigo, in December, 1494) to have broken out among the besieg¬ 
ing army to an alarming extent, and in an exceedingly severe 
form.”—[Zietnssen’s Cyclopedia, vol. 3, p. 19.] 
Our effort so far has been to question the views of the 
“ unicists,” who maintain that syphilis has' existed from remotest 
antiquity. We come now to consider the theory of the “ dualists,” 
who believe syphilis to be a descendant of leprosy or some other 
disease; or was brought from America by the crews of Columbus. 
As regards the former derivation, Baumler writes : “ An attempt 
has been made recently to establish the theory of the development 
of syphilis from leprosy. A. F. Simon calls it the offspring of 
leprosy, and claims, too, that under certain circumstances it may 
become its parent. What we see of the leprosy in the East and 
various other lands at the present day certainly bears but slight 
resemblance to syphilis; and it is noticeable, too, that in the com¬ 
mencement of the sixteenth century the lepers were evidently 
afraid of infection from those who were syphilitic (leprosi nolebant 
habitare cum hoc rnorbo infectes, says Laws, Pristus, Aphr; 1, 
p. 344); and that this was not groundless fear—that is, that lepra 
afforded no immunity against syphilis is shown conclusively by 
the inoculation tests of Danielsscn.”— {Ibid, p. 12.] 
Now leprosy is one of the oldest diseases known to medical 
history ; it was never considered to be contagious, and it would 
be strange indeed if, all at once, it should have assumed this 
form! We do not believe that it did. For it is no more possible 
for a special form of disease to lose its identity and become trans¬ 
formed into a specific type of malady, entirely unlike it, than it is 
for figs to grow upon thistles or in any other impossible way. All 
analogy bears out this assertion. 
