AN INQUIRY. 
161 
Jalir writes that u although we cannot consider the so-called 
epidemic syphilis of the last years of the fifteenth century as a 
venereal disease in itself, nevertheless we have to view it as the 
fountain head of our modern syphilis. In this respect, whatever 
has reference to the originating causes and the phenomenal forms 
of that epidemic must be as valuable to us as the ulterior history 
of syphilis itself.” 
Of the epidemic itself, Petrus Pintar reports to Pope Alex¬ 
ander VI.: “ The prevailing epidemic is characterized by a 
variety of symptoms, more particularly by keen and excessively 
violent pains. Some do not have any pains, in the place of which 
they are attacked by pustules of various shapes and sizes, being 
very numerous on some individuals, and on others more scanty. 
Sometimes the pustules break out only in the face, or on the 
head, while the other parts of the body remain free; in other 
cases, they are only seen on the abdomen; most frequently they 
break out on the thighs and legs, but may likewise spread over 
the whole body. Grenbeck states that the disease commenced 
with languor and debility of the limbs, after which the pustules 
broke out, with intense fever. He adds that whenever these 
pustules or tumors burst open, they sometimes become converted 
into frightful phagademic sores.” 
This epidemic, we are told, “ was a characteristically pustulous 
disease, distinguished by the breaking out of large, ugly, purulent 
pocks, and accompanied by horrid bone pains, and more particu¬ 
larly communicated by intercourse with women who were attacked 
by the disease.” Those authors, however, do not state—and yet 
it would have been of great importance for us to know—whether 
these pustules first broke out in the pudendum, or on the face, or 
on the whole body; nor do they state whether the first signs of a 
recent infection were first seen on the sexual organs. If this was 
not the case, and if, according to the universal testimony of con¬ 
temporaries, the infection was caught by simply touching the 
epidermis, or by inhaling the breath of an affected individual, 
such a cause must have operated much more powerfully owing to 
the act of coition, which, if true, would not by any means justify 
the idea that this plague was venereal. In addition to this, we 
