Having reached this general result at the conclusion of the first Part
of our Investigations, we would now seem only to have to co-ordinate
the various pieces of evidence thus far brought together without
reference to time and place, but merely on the principle of similarity
of contents, under local and temporal conditions, in order to obtain
a general exposition of _the development of Venereal Disease in
Antiquity_. Willing as we may be to undertake the task, and necessary
as its performance is,—for it is precisely this that constitutes the
History properly so called of the Disease,—still we must freely admit
that for the present the fixed data indispensable for the work are too
few to enable us to do more than offer suggestive hints. At the same
time to supply these missing data by hypotheses that must necessarily
lack all positive grounds, is not, at any rate in our opinion,
consistent with the dignity and duty of a Historian.
As to the _local_ determinations, those defining the places, to which
such or such information given us belongs, are extremely scanty, and
such as they are, we owe them mainly to the non-professional Authors.
Among the Physicians, who from the nature of the case must be chiefly
considered here, they are all but entirely wanting; true they are
almost all Greek instances, still in the majority of cases it is left
absolutely undetermined whether the observations, the mere results of
which moreover are given us, were made in Greece, at Rome or in Asia
Minor. But even supposing knowledge amounting to certainty _were_
available on this point, yet the local range as compared with the whole
Ancient world is too limited to entitle us to use it successfully as
evidence in drawing up a general History of the Disease.
The _temporal_ determinations are in no better case. This is especially
so where the Physicians are concerned; not to mention the general
uncertainty as to the epoch at which most of them lived and made their
observations, they are for the most part bad witnesses for this reason
if for no other, that they have obviously copied one from another,
or at any rate so far as their works are extant for our examination,
utilized,—with the possible exception of Galen,—certain common sources
of information, which unfortunately have been completely lost. The loss
is the more to be deplored as the authorities in question belonged just
to the most flourishing period of scientific Medicine, that of the
Alexandrian physicians.
Yet another drawback is that up to the present we are entirely without
information as to the consecutive order of the series of epidemics
in Antiquity, by the indirect help of which alone do the historical
factors conditioning Venereal disease become discernible; while so
far as appears, there is no reasonable hope of our ever attaining
any clearer light on the point. Nay! even if we did possess the
information, it could only apply to Greece, Rome and Asia Minor, for
as previously pointed out, in countries situated in the hot Zone the
_genius epidemicus_ (general consensus of epidemic conditions) is but
rarely as a rule strong enough to override the _genius endemicus_
(general consensus of endemic conditions). As much therefore as can in
such a state of things be predicated with some basis of reason as not
entirely hypothetical may be pretty well summed up as follows:—
Diseases of the genital organs developed little by little among nearly
all the Peoples of Antiquity known to us at all intimately under the
favouring conditions detailed in preceding pages. At the same time in
virtue of the large number of counteracting influences they seldom
attained to any high degree of intensity, and remained mostly local,
taking the form of mucous discharges and superficial ulcers, without
provoking any general reaction of the organism. Even when such reaction
did occur, it was the skin that felt it, in such a way as to throw off
the effects of morbid activity in the form of cutaneous maladies. These
conditions lasted usually as long as the different Peoples continued
to cultivate mutual exclusiveness; directly they abandoned this, and
individual members of different foreign stocks began to combine to
gratify an unbridled licentiousness, affections of the genitals not
only increased in frequency, but over and above this a malignant
character was stamped upon them, with which both the development and
the intensity of any particular contagion stood in direct ratio.
Examples are to be found in the Plague of Baal Peor among the Jews
at Shittim (§§ 8. and 9. above), in the introduction of the cult of
Dionysus at Athens (§ 98.) and of Priapus at Lampsacus (§ 7.), both
of which latter are connected with the March of Bacchus to and from
India, as well as lastly in the introduction of the Lingam-worship in
India itself (§ 6.). All these phænomena point to the conclusion that
a remarkable frequency and malignity of affections of the genitals was
connected with influences conditioned from without, amongst which we
have to reckon the general epidemic conditions. This becomes the more
interesting and important from the fact that we meet with the same
thing again in the XVth. Century, a period when the incorrect view
taken of the circumstances led to the most contradictory opinions being
held. However both influences and effects were merely transitory, as
is proved by the unanimous consensus of authorities that the phænomena
provoked by the conditions disappeared again after a certain interval
of time, an interval that seems among the Jews only to have lasted
somewhat longer under endemic influence.
Still under no circumstances does this justify us in arguing to a total
absence of all affections of the genital organs,—as is proved, no
doubt after an interval of more than a thousand years, (if indeed we
are to admit the occurrences just mentioned to count at all as actual
historical facts), by (1) the general weather conditions laid down by
Hippocrates and their consequences, and (2) an event that probably was
connected with the same conditions, the Plague of Athens described by
Thucydides. Here we find indisputable proof given us that affections
of the genitals, as also most likely the contagion conditioning them,
increased under favourable epidemic influence in frequency, malignity
and intensity, while concurrently the secondary forms manifested
themselves pre-eminently by symptoms of an exanthematic type.
For close on five hundred years onwards we are again left without
information; but the statements contributed by Celsus show that
meantime there had been ample opportunities of observing and treating
affections of the genitals. In the time of Pompey the Great, when
Themison made his observations on the wide prevalence of satyriasis
in Crete, there was developed, it would appear, though from what
causes is not known, a general consensus of predominantly exanthematic
conditions, that seems to have continued for a long period of time,
no doubt as was to be expected with sundry interruptions intervening.
Under favour of these conditions was developed in the first instance
elephantiasis, and later on under the Emperor Claudius _mentagra_,
which above all in Martial’s time afflicted the Romans, while caricous
tumours (_ficus_) became an every-day complaint. From that epoch
onwards, direct historical evidences more and more tend to disappear,
till eventually it is only in the prescription-books of Physicians that
we gather any inkling of the continued necessity for medical aid and
concurrently of the existence of Venereal Disease.
INDEX
OF
GREEK AND LATIN WORDS
EXPLAINED IN THE TEXT,
AND OF THE
SUBJECTS DISCUSSED
IN BOTH VOLUMES