II. SYPHILIS OF THE ANCIENTS
Secale 155.- Biblical Forms of Syphilis.
Modern writers on syphilis have been divided in opinion upon the true origin and the different forms of syphilis, since the origin of this disease. Many trace it back to the first beginning of the human race; some pretend to discover traces of this disease in the oldest writings, not only in the writings of the Greeks and Romans, but even in the books of Moses and the book of job. On the other hand, there are authors who are of opinion that syphilis is a modern disease, whose origin is to be found in the fifteenth century, when it was developed either in consequence of a degenerate modification of ancient lepra, or was transmitted to us from the newly discovered continent of America. It is not an easy task to determine which of these different views is correct, so much more as every author bases his opinion upon facts that cannot well be verified as the present time. We will endeavor to examine these facts as carefully as possible, and commence our examination with the Biblical record, containing statements that may indeed bear some analogy to syphilitic phenomena, and upon which those who trace the origin of syphilis back to the earliest period of the human race, depend for their theories. As regards Job’s disease, which is looked upon by many as syphilitic pustules, entailed upon him as a punishment for canal transgressions, it may be said that, even admitting that the history of Job is a real fact instead of being a poem, the passages supposed to relate to syphilis are too vague to infer from them any thing very definite regarding the nature of Job’s disease, which, if any thing, should be considered as lepra rather than syphilis, the scales of which never become, like those of lepra, sufficiently numerous to invite the suffer to scrape himself with pieces of tile, as Job had to do. The case is different as regards the ordinance given by Moses in Leviticus xv. 16, on account of a “discharge from the urethra,” by which, undoubtedly, an infections gonorrhoea must have been meant, However, if those who advocate the doctrine that chancre existed at that early period, see in this ordinance a confirmation of their belief, those, on the contrary, who regard chancre-syphilis and gonorrhoea as two distinct diseases, find in this ordinance a proof of the correctness of their own statements; for, if chancres had existed at that time, Moses would undoubtedly have spoken of ulcers on the sexual organs. It is likewise certain that the Baal-Peor plague described in the 4th book of Moses, xxxi. 16, and transmitted to the Israelites by the daughters of the Midianites, which was so malignant that twenty-four thousand of them died in a very short time, was “an infections disease of the sexual organs”; but it is not certain whether this disease was our modern syphilitic chancre, or some other analogous plague; unless we should deem it proper to infer from this case the existence of several forms of an infectious virus, which we shall consider more fully in the next chapter. Concerning the disease of David, which this poet mentions in Psalms vi. and xxxviii., which some likewise regard as a description of syphilis, it is not certain, since the historical books of the Bible do not make any mention of this disease, whether these two Psalms may not be regarded as a sort of echo of analogous passages from the book of Job, concerning which we have already expressed our opinion.
Secale 156.- Venereal Diseases of the Greeks and Romans.
Here we find from the immemorial ulcers, and even a sort of excrescence, described on the sexual organs. Hippocrates, for instance, in his book, “de aere, aquis et locis,” speaks of ulcers that break not on the sexual organs; likewise Celsus, who recommends extirpation with the knife of obstinate and incurable cancerous ulcers, (cancer, not chancre) around the glans; Aetius mentions ulcers on the glans of such a malignant character, that amputation of the penis may be rendered necessary thereby, and which a designates by the name of ulcera depascentia; finally, Actuarius and others, who describe, under the name of thymi; small excrescence on the glans, prepuce, at the meatus urinarius, and anus; and likewise rhagades, on the male parts, the anus, and pudendum. Plinius the Younger relates the case of a woman who threw herself into the water on account of her husband being affected with putrid ulcers on the sexual arts; the Jewish historian Josephus speaks of the private parts of Herod, that had become putrid, and likewise of a corrosive ulcer on the private organs of the blasphemer Apion, which destroyed his life. Palladius mentions the case of Heron, who, while drunk, had connection with an actress, in consequence of which he became affected, with an anthrax on the glans, that caused the parts of rot and drop off. If we add to these facts certain allusions to the found in the satirical poems of Juvenal and Martial, we may have to concede the antediluvian age of syphilis to those who regard every contagious ulcer on the sexual organs, or every infections discharge from the urethra, as a symptom of syphilis. But the above-mentioned facts are too vague and too insufficient to justify the inference that the pretended syphilis of those days is identical with the modern syphilitic chancre. With the exception of the case related by Palladius, not one of the above- mentioned authors ascribes his cases to infectious intercourse, but to a libidous life generally. Even Palladius regards the case of Heron as a punishment inflicted by God, which he would not have done, if infections diseases had prevailed among the Greeks and Romans, who certainly were not very abstemious. We omit the many passages from Suetonius, quoted by authors in support of their opinions, and having reference to the naevi and brush-marks found of the Emperor Augustus; the acne rosacea baldheadedness, and cicatrices caused by the use of blisters related by Tacitus, of the Emperor Tiberius; and Eusebius case, of a chronic abscess and fistulous ulcer of the Emperor Galerius Maximus; if cases like these, or the ulcers and glandular abscesses of which these authors make mention, had been of a venereal nature, syphilis either cannot have been as universal or as infectious as is has been for the last four centuries, or else it must have been just as common at that time as it is at the present. In the latter case, however, both the Greek and Roman authors would have left us a much more circumstantial description of the disease than mere vague and imperfect descriptions of isolated cases which, moreover, have to be interpreted with a great deal of generous liberality if the evidence they are supposed to furnish is to be accepted as authoritative.
Secale 157.- The Venereal Diseases of the Middle Ages.
Here we have, in the first place, the writings of the Arabians, among whom John Mezue, in the eighth century writes of a purulent discharge from the urethra, with burning when urinating; Rhazes reports of Machumet, the son of Alchases, that he was affected with a disease of the glans, that must gradually invade the whole of it, since the patient was already discharging pus with the urine; finally, Avicenna mentions certain ulcers on the penis, and render the amputation of this organ necessary. Among the European physicians of the Arabian school, Michael Scott speaks of women whose discharge infects young people, so that their penis becomes diseased, or they become affected with lepra, and that the children born of such parents are born with corrupt humors, Garrioponti’s description comes still nearer, partially at least, our modern syphilis; he speaks not only of purulent discharges from the urethra, but likewise of condylomata and other similar excrescence. William of salicet even makes mention and other similar excrescence. William of salicet even makes mention of buboes showing themselves on person who had connection with impure women, or whose penis was diseased this author, who lived in the thirteenth century, when speaking of white pustules, rhagades, and other infectious products on the penis or prepuce, regards them as the consequence of impure coit. Lanfranc, a disciple of the former, speaks of buboes arising after ulcers on the penis, and likewise of excrescences on the prepuce and glans, which, if getting worse, may become converted into cancerous ulcers; in one passage, he states that connection with in impure woman may cause a cancerous ulcer (cancer) that may render the amputation of the penis necessary, Gordon, who wrote some time after the former, mentions as consequences of an impure coit, cancerous ulcers, abscesses, and pruritus, adding, however, that these phenomena may likewise arise from other causes, such as from a fall, below, etc., but as the same time, states, that when caused by impure intercourse, these phenomena are much more difficult to cure. Similar remarks are found in the writings of other physicians of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, more particularly in those of John of Gallisden, Guy de Chauliac, Valescus de Tarenta, of Montpelier, Pedro de Argelata, etc. One of the most remarkable works is that of William Beckett, surgeon of London, where we find a collection of every printed or written document bearing upon the remote age of syphilis; what is most remarkable i n this work, is the number of cases that are said to have been caused by intercourse with leprous women, on which account, the reporters of those cases warm most seriously against all sexual connection with women thus diseases. In this work, Beckett alludes more particularly to a disease which he calls arsura (burning urine), which, according to him, consists in a sort of soreness of the urethra (a sort of gonorrhoea), regarding which, he alludes to a petition to Henry VIII., of England, wherein the petitioner complains that the disease is chiefly spread by the priests, who, having become BURNT by intercourse with leprous women, transmit the disease to other women. This statement of the disease being transmitted by men to women is remarkable in this respect, that all other reports speak of the disease as having been transmitted by women, whose “unfathomed fountain,” unless kept clean, “may contain infections impurities or corruption.”
