SECTION XIII.

STAMP NO. XII.—FOUND IN IRELAND.

A Roman medicine-stamp has lately turned up in these islands, in a

locality in which its presence could be little expected—viz., in the

county of Tipperary, in Ireland. It has been described by Mr. Albert Way

in an interesting paper, published after the first part of the present

essay appeared in the _Monthly Journal of Medical Science_.[569] Dr.

Dowsley, of Clonmel, who now possesses this stone, has kindly furnished

me with a wax impression of its inscription, and with the following note

relative to the locality in which it was discovered:—“It was found (he

says) near the village of Golden, parish of Relig-Murry, in the county

of Tipperary, in a field near the ruins of an old hospital, or at least

what was supposed to be such; but it was built at so remote a period,

that there is now no record of what the building was for, nor of the

founder of it, and so little of the walls are at present standing, that

even the style of architecture cannot be known. The seal was discovered

by a labourer when digging. There was no pottery nor coin found; but

near it was a human skeleton much decayed, the position of which in the

ground was not noticed. The soil in this field is peculiarly rich and

very deep; it is frequently carted away for manure; most likely it was

an ancient burial-ground. The village of Golden is about a mile from the

old Abbey of Athassel.”

It is unnecessary to discuss here how such a Roman relic reached this

part of Ireland,[570] and whether it was conveyed there or not when the

Romans were colonising Britain; or, what is probable, at a later period.

But I may merely remark, there can be no doubt that Roman civilisation

and Roman practices spread in the earlier centuries of the Christian era

to parts beyond the precise line of Roman conquest. Other Roman relics

have been found in Ireland,[571] though Ireland was never subject to the

Roman arms; and Roman vases, ornaments, and coins, have been discovered

even in those more distant and northern Scandinavian settlements, to

which the Roman power never penetrated.[572]

Plate III., No. XII., shows the figure of this Irish medicine-stamp. It

is engraved only on one side, and the inscription runs as follows:—

M IUVEN TUTIANI

DIAMYSUS AD VET CIC

M(_arci?_) JUVEN_tii_ TUTIANI DIAMYSUS AD VET_eres_ CIC_atrices_.—_The

Diamysus of Marcus Juventius Tutianus, for old cicatrices._

At the end of the first line there is a small cut in the inscription

(see Plate), which, in all probability, is not a letter, but a mark or

ornament intended to fill up that space. If a letter, it is most likely

C, standing perhaps for collyrium.

In speaking of the Bath stone, I have already taken occasion to state

that this same inscription of _Diamysus ad veteres cicatrices_ has now

been found on various Roman medicine-stamps discovered in different

parts of France.

The collyrium DIAMISYOS or DIAMYSOS derived its designation from

containing as its principal ingredient the _Misy_, a metallic vitriolic

preparation, used to a considerable extent as a stimulant and escharotic

among the ancients; and it was retained even to a comparatively late

period in the London Pharmacopœia.[573] It appears to be still used

medicinally in the East.[574]

The chemical nature, however, of _Misy_ has given rise to some

considerable doubt and discussion. It was usually found, and generally

described, along with two other cognate fossils, _Sori_ and _Chalcitis_.

And Galen, who enters into an elaborate description of them, visited the

copper mines of Cyprus, with a view of determining the precise nature of

these three mineral substances.[575]

Dr. Adams,[576] who has examined this question with all his well-known

great learning and care, believes that these three minerals were merely

varieties of _chalcanthum_ or copperas. In his opinion the _Chalcitis_

was probably a kind of pure sulphate of copper which had contracted an

efflorescence from age; the _Sori_ was sulphate of copper combined with

zinc or other impurities; and the _Misy_ was a combination of sulphate

of copper with sulphate of iron, the predominance of the chalybeate salt

giving to the fossil its peculiar colour. For the Misy, says

Dioscorides, is “of a golden appearance, hard, shining like gold when

broken, and glancing like stars.”

In his remarks on the _Misy_, Dioscorides speaks of the analogy of its

caustic power with those of Chalcitis; but the only diseases that he

referred to as having the _Misy_ used in their treatment, are the

diseases of the eye. And he does so in telling us that the Egyptian kind

of _Misy_ is quite inferior to the Cyprian in forming eye-medicines

(ocularia medicamenta).[577]

In speaking of its medical powers, Galen,[578] Oribasius,[579] and

Paulus Ægineta,[580] describe the _Misy_ as escharotic, and astringent.

In giving his list of eye-medicines, Galen places the _Misy_, _Sori_,

etc., amongst those local applications which have a detergent

effect.[581] Paulus Ægineta enters the _Misy_ in his list of

“detergents of foul ulcers” of the eye (vol. iii. p. 548). Pliny, in

describing the properties of Misy, states that “extenuat scabrities

oculorum.”[582] Celsus in his work repeatedly alludes to the _Misy_ and

its effects.[583] One of the collyria which he describes when treating

of granular ophthalmia, contains the _Misy_ (see page 294). And he adds,

that with the exception of those affections which require mild

applications, this special collyrium is adapted to every kind of

disorder of the eye (adversus omne genus oculorum valetudinis idoneum

est). Galen (vol. xii. p. 736), Oribasius (lib. iv. p. 51), and Paulus

Ægineta (vol. iii. 556), all give formulæ for the collyrium PANCHRESTOS

of Erasistratus, which contained _Misy_ as its leading ingredient. “It

has,” says Paulus, “wonderful efficacy in diseases of the eyes.”

Oribasius enters it as a “compositio admirabilis.” The _Misy_, as a

reputed “valedissimum medicamentum,” enters as an ingredient into

several of the collyria described by Actuarius.[584]

In a previous page I have already taken occasion to state that Marcellus

Empiricus gives a formula for a collyrium under the name inscribed upon

the stone of the collyrium DIAMISYOS; and he describes it as calculated

“ad aspritudines oculorum tollendas et ad lachrymas substringendas.”

The collyrium _Diamisyos_ of Marcellus Empiricus consists of _Misy_

burnt till it becomes red, and then combined with spikenard, saffron,

cadmia, calcined copper, opium, myrrh, Cyprian scales, and gum, with all

which it was to be rubbed down in the best wine, shaken and filtered.

But he gives also the alternative of adding to the _Diamysos_ another

ingredient, which was long an article in the materia medica—viz.

vipers. For some (he observes) add to the collyrium _Diamisyos_ “a

viper, dried and baked well in the sun, as if it were salted” (quidam

adjiciunt huic collyrio viperam siccam et arefactam bene in sole tanquam

si sit salita). He goes on, however, still further to explain that

prayers and incantations must be used in making this addition to the

_Diamisyos_. For (he observes) if you thus wish to add the dried viper,

you must first extract its bones, roll it up in linen, and then pour

over it the wine of the collyrium, previously charming the viper (sed

prius eam praecantabis) as follows, lest it cause tears and produce

harm, saying, “As thou dost not see, even so may thy juice, when tasted,

hurt no one, but I pray that with the purpose for which thou hast been

added, thou mayest[585] further the cure (quomodo tu non vides, sic et

tuus succus gustatus nulli noceat, sed ob rem propter quam adjecta es

proficias bene curationi, precor).”[586]

ANTIQUARIAN NOTICES OF SYPHILIS IN SCOTLAND.

Medical men are, for the most part, agreed upon two points in relation

to the history of syphilis—viz. that it is a species of disease which

was unknown to the Greek, Roman, and Arabian physicians; and that it

first began to prevail in Europe in the later years of the fifteenth

century.

The non-existence of syphilis in ancient times, and the circumstance of

its original appearance in Europe about the date alluded to, are

opinions strongly borne out by two sets of facts. For, first, no

definite account of this marked and extraordinary species of disease is

to be found in the writings of any one of the ancient Greek or Roman

physicians, historians, or poets; and, secondly, of the numerous authors

whose works exist in the learned collections of Luisinus,[587]

Astruc,[588] and Girtanner,[589] and who saw and described the malady in

the later years of the fifteenth or commencement of the sixteenth

century, almost all comment upon it as (to use their own general

expressions) _morbus novus, morbus ignotus, ægritudo inaudita,

ægritudo nova, malum novum, novus et nostro orbe incognitus

morbus_, etc. etc.[590]

It would not, however, affect our present object were we to consider the

disease, as it appeared about the period in question, not to have been a

new malady previously totally unknown, but merely, as some have thought,

an aggravated form of a disease formerly existing in so mild a form as

not to have attracted general observation.

Nor need I stop here to inquire into the much more difficult questions

of the probable source of syphilis, and the exact date at which syphilis

first burst forth in Europe. In relation to the object which I have at

present in view, it matters not whether the malady sprang up

spontaneously and endemically in Spain, Italy, or France, at the era in

question; or was imported from Africa, as Grüner,[591] Infessura,[592]

and others allege; or from Hispaniola, as Astruc,[593] Girtanner,[594]

Weatherhead,[595] and various other authorities, have stoutly and not

unsuccessfully maintained. Nor is it necessary for me to discuss whether

it first showed itself in 1493, as Sanchez[596] and Hensler[597]

consider that they have proved; or in 1492, as Fulgosi[598] asserts; or

as early even as the month of October 1483, as Peter Pinctor,[599] in

1500, demonstrated astrologically, to his own complete satisfaction at

least, that it ought to have done, inasmuch as that was—as he

sagaciously convinced himself—the precise and exact date of the

conjunction of Venus with Jupiter, Mars, and Mercury; and the

conjunction of these or other stars in the heavens above, was—so he and

many of the astrological physicians of his day believed—the undoubted

origin of this new scourge on the earth below.

In such a notice as the present, we may most safely, I believe, and that

too without entertaining the question of the exact source or

geographical origin of syphilis, start from the general proposition that

the disease was in 1494 and 1495 first distinctly recognised in Italy,

during the invasion of that country by the victorious army of Charles

VIII. of France. The malady is usually allowed to have first broken out

in a very marked degree at Naples, about the time that Charles took

possession of that city, in the spring of 1495; or nearly two years

after Columbus’ return from his first voyage to Hispaniola. Charles set

out again for France in May 1495; and the malady seems to have been both

diffused by his infected troops along the line of their northward march,

and afterwards carried to their respective homes by his own French

soldiers, as well as by his various Swiss, German, and Flemish

auxiliaries.

But it is as little my intention at present to trace the progress as to

ascertain the first origin of syphilis in Europe. The chief object of

the present communication is to adduce some data which show that the new

malady was not long in reaching the shores of Scotland, and in

spreading to different towns in that kingdom. In proof of this, I have

principally to appeal to one or two old edicts and ordinances relative

to the disease, and to other collateral but slighter evidence bearing

upon the subject. The edicts or statutes in question were issued by the

Town-Council of Aberdeen, in relation to the existence of the malady in

Aberdeen; and by the Privy Council of Scotland, in relation to the

prevalence of the disease in Edinburgh. The two first edicts in both

places were issued in 1497. That of Aberdeen is the earlier. It is dated

the 21st of April 1497. Its words, as they stand in the old and

carefully preserved Council Records of that city,[600] are the

following:—

“The said day, it was statut and ordanit be the Alderman and Consale for

the eschevin _of the infirmitey cumm out of Franche and strang partis_,

that all licht weman be chargit and ordanit to decist fra thar vices and

syne of venerie, and all thair buthis and houssis skalit, and thai to

pas and wirk for thar sustentacioun vndir the payne of ane key of het

yrne one thair chekis, and banysene of the toune.” (Vol. i. p. 425.)

A few years later—or on the 8th October 1507—a long list of statutes

was passed by the “Prouest, bailyes, and counsale” of Aberdeen, for the

“common proffitt, weil, and gud reull of the burgh.” Two of these

statutes refer again to the introduction and spread of syphilis. By the

first of these statutes it was enacted “That diligent inquisitioun be

takin of ale infect personis with this strange _seiknes of Nappillis_,

for the sauetie of the town; and the personis beand infectit therwith

be chargit to keip thaime in their howssis and vther places fra the

haill folkis.” (Vol. i. p. 437.)

Two or three enactments follow in the “statut buk” on minor subjects,

one ordering the hygienic measure “that thar salbe certane personis to

cleng the toun and dicht the causaies;” and then succeeds another

sanitary ordinance relative to the avoidance of syphilis—viz. “That

nayne infeccht folkis with the _seiknes of Napillis_ be haldin at the

common fleschouss, or with the fleschouris, baxteris, brousteris,

ladinaris, for sauete of the toun, and the personis infectit sale keip

thame quyat in thar houssis, zhardis, or vther comat placis, quhill thai

be haill, for the infectioun of their nichtbouris.” (P. 437.)

The Edinburgh edict regarding syphilis was six months later in date than

the first of those issued by the magistrates of Aberdeen, and is more

lengthy in its details and provisions. It was drawn up, as I have

already said, by the King’s Privy Council, and apparently sent to the

magistrates for due execution. It is preserved in the first volume of

the _Town Records of Edinburgh_, fol. 33, 34, and is entitled in the

rubric “Ane Grangore Act;”—Grandgore being an early term often applied

to syphilis in Scotland. This edict has been repeatedly printed, but

usually in a very incorrect form. The exact date and words of it are as

follows:—

“xxii Septembris anno i^ai iiii^c lxxxxvii zeiris. It is our Souerane

Lordis will and the command of the Lordis of his Counsale send to the

Provest and baillies within this burch, that this proclamatioune follow

and be put till executioune for the eschewing of the greit apperand

danger of the infectioune of his liegis fra this contagius seiknes

callit the Grandgor, and the greit vther skayth that may occure to his

legeis and inhabitouris within this burch—that is to say—We charge

straitlie and commandis be the authoritie abone written, that all maner

of personis being within the fredome of this burch quhilkis ar infectit

or hes bene infectit vncurit with this said contagious plage callit the

Grandgor, devoyd red and pas furth of this toun and compeir vpoun the

sandis of Leith at x houris befoir none, and thair sall thai haue and

fynd botis reddie in the havin ordanit to thame be the officiaris of

this burch reddely furneist with victuallis to haue thame to the Inche,

and thair to remane quhill God prouyde for thair health, and that all

vther personis the quhilkis takis vpoune thame to hale the said

contagious infirmitie and takis[601] the cure thairof, that they devoyd

and pas with thame, sua that nane of thir personis quhilkis takis sic

cure vpoune thame vse the samyn cure within this burch in presens nor

peirt ony maner of way—and quha sa beis fundin infectit and nocht

passand to the Inche as said is be Monounday at the sone ganging to, and

in lykwayis the saidis personis that takis the said cure of sanitie

vpoun thame gif thai will vse the samyn thai and ilk of thame sal be

brynt on the cheik with the marking irne that thai may be kennit in tyme

to cum—and thairefter gif ony thame remanis that thai sall be banisht

but fauouris.”

It is almost unnecessary to add that the measures adopted by the public

authorities in Aberdeen and Edinburgh were utterly inadequate to arrest

the further dissemination of syphilis after it was inoculated upon the

country. It seems indeed to have been spread to the more populous towns

of Scotland within a year or two after its first introduction into the

kingdom. There are some references in official documents of the period

which incidentally but amply prove this rapidity in its diffusion.

The notices to which I here specially refer exist in the Accounts of the

Lord High Treasurer of Scotland. The Register House, Edinburgh, contains

a curious and valuable series of these Accounts, detailing the daily

expenses of the kings of Scotland from the reign of James III. down to

the ascension of the English throne by James VI. At the time of the

first appearance of syphilis in our northern realm, the throne of

Scotland was occupied by James IV., a prince who was a great patron of

the arts and sciences of his time. He was a practitioner in them also,

as well as a patron of them. At different times we find him busily

experimenting in chemistry, in physiology, and in medicine. His daily

expense-books contain many entries of purchases for instruments and

materials to make the unmakeable “quinta essentia,” or philosopher’s

stone; and he had laboratories for these investigations both at

Edinburgh and Stirling. His alchemical assistant—John the Leeche—whom

he had imported from the Continent and made Abbot of Tungland,

experimented for the king in physiology as well as in chemistry. John,

Dædalus-like, undertook to prove the improvability of human progression

by flying to France with wings. “To that effect he causet (states Bishop

Lesley[602]) mak ane pair of wingis of fedderis, quhilkis beand fessinit

apoun him, he flew off the castell wall of Striveling, but shortly he

fell to the ground and brak his thee bane.” But the doctrine of

sympathies was in vogue in these days, and by that doctrine the

afflicted Abbot easily, of course, and clearly explained all. For the

cause of his fall, or “the wyt thairof he asscryvit to that thair was

sum hen fedderis in the wingis, quhilk yarnit and covet the mydding and

not the skyis.” Like the Egyptian king mentioned by Herodotus, King

James made also a physiological or rather philological experiment to

ascertain the primeval language of mankind; and for this purpose his

Majesty sent a deaf and dumb woman to live with and bring up two young

children upon the island of Inchkeith in the Firth of Forth—the same

island to which we have found the first victims of syphilis previously

banished, and itself the old “Urbs Guidi” of the venerable Bede. When

the two children, the companions of the “dumb voman cam to the aige of

perfyte speach, some sayes” (to quote the account of Lindsay of

Pitscottie) “they spak guid Hebrew;”[603] but the cautious old Scottish

chronicler sagely doubts the truth of this tradition. King James

personally practised the art of leechcraft, as well as experimented in

alchemy and physiology. “He was,” says Pitscottie, “weill learned in the

airt of medicine, and was ane singular guid chirurgiane; and thair was

none of that professioune, if they had any dangerous cure in hand, bot

would have craved his adwyse” (p. 249). So states the ancient Scottish

historian. The High Treasurer’s Account shows that the king had in one

important respect a right royal way of gaining patients,—a way by the

adoption of which he probably might have secured a considerable

consultation and private practice even in these modern days of

high-pressure rivalry, and keen competition. For he paid his patients,

instead of being paid by them. Thus, for example, in his daily

expense-book, under the date of April 14th and 15th, 1491, are the two

following entries:—

“Item to Domenico to gif the king leve to lat him blud, xviii

shillings.” “Item til a man yat come to Lythgow to lat the king blud

and did it nocht, xviii shillings.”

Some time afterwards he buys from a travelling pedlar “thre compases,

ane hammer, and a turcase to tak out teeth;” and forthwith, we find the

Scottish king becoming—like the more modern Peter the Great of

Russia—not a dentist to royalty, but himself a royal dentist, as the

two following entries may suffice to show (the first of them—provided

there be any truth whatever in dental orthography—surely indicating a

tooth of rather a tough and tusky character):—

“Item, to ane fallow, because the king pullit furtht his twtht, xviii

shillings.”

“Item, to Kynnard, ye barbour, for tua teith drawin furtht of his hed

be the king, xviii shillings.”

He seems to have tried his royal hand also at ocular surgery. But the

terms of the following entry would seem rather ominously to hint that he

was not a very successful operator for cataract:—

“Item, giffin to ye blind wif yat hed her eyne schorne, xiii shillings.”

A prince imbued with such medical and surgical propensities would

naturally feel deeply interested in the first appearance within his

realm of such a malady as syphilis; and in his Treasurer’s accounts

there are several entries indicating that the king had bestowed monies

upon various persons affected with this disease. Perhaps these monies

were given less in the way of alms than in the way of a reward for the

king’s medication of the patients; less for the behoof of royal charity

than of royal chirurgery. The entries I advert to all occur during the

currency of the years 1497 and 1498.[604] They are as follows:—the

first sum given away being to a person at Dalry, when the king was on

one of his many pilgrimages to the ancient and holy shrine of St. Ninian

at Whitehorn, in Wigtownshire.

September 1497.

“Item, to ane woman with the grantgore thair [Dalrye, in Ayrshire],

be the kingis command iijs. vjd.”

2 October 1497.

“Item to thaim that hed the grantgor at Linlithquho viijd.”

21 February 1497-8.

“Item, that samyn day at the tounne end of Strivelin to the

seke folk in the grantgore ijs.”

22 February 1497-8.

“Item, the xxij day of Februar giffin to the seke folk in the

grangore at the tounn end of Glasgo. ijs.”

April 1498.

“... seke folk in grangor in Lithgw as the King

com in the tounne ijs. viijd.”

In the course of the preceding remarks I have had occasion to adduce

seven or eight different notices with regard to the appearance of

syphilis in various cities and districts of Scotland during the years

1497-8, as at Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Stirling, Linlithgow, etc. A

diversity of allusions to the same disease, of a less direct and

official character, and somewhat later in date, may be traced in various

olden Scottish works and writings. The malady is occasionally alluded

to, for example, in the reports left us of some of the old criminal and

other trials of Scotland. Thus a minute in the Records of the Privy Seal

of Scotland records the punishment of a medical man in whose hands a

dignitary of the church had died while under treatment for syphilis. The

entry is as follows:—

January 18th, 1509.—“Respitt made to Thomas Lyn, burges of Edinburgh,

for ye slauchtir of umquihile Schir Lancelote Patonsoun, chapellain,

quhilk happinit be negligent cure and medicine yat ye said Thomas

tuk one him to cure and hele ye said umquhile Schir Lancelote of ye

infirmitie of ye Grantgor yat he was infekkit with. To endure for xix

yeeris. (Subscripsit per dominum Regem apud Edinburghe.)”[605]

Some, perhaps, of my professional brethren may think that this nineteen

years’ banishment from the town was a proper punishment for an

unprofessional charlatan undertaking the cure of syphilis in the

sixteenth century; and some, possibly, may even hold, that it would not

be an improper proceeding in this—the nineteenth century.

The disease is alluded to in some of the old Scotch witch trials of the

sixteenth century.

One of the most remarkable of these trials was that of a lady of station

and wealth—Euphame Macalzane, daughter of Lord Cliftonhall, a judge of

the Court of Session. Among other matters, she was “indyted and accusit”

of using, during the birth of her two sons, anæsthetics in the form of

charms, and a fairy stone “layit under the bowster,” whereby, in the

words of the dittay, “your seiknes was cassin of you unnaturallie, in

the birth of your fyrst sone upon ane dog, quhilk ranne away and wes

newir sene agane. And in the birth of your last sone, the same prakteis

foirsaid wes usit, and your naturall and kindlie payne, unnaturallie

cassin of you uponn the wantonne cat in the house, quhilk lyke wyis wes

newer sene thair efter.” In the fourteenth item of her indictment she is

accused of trying to break off a marriage by “certane witchcraft,” and

by alleging that the intended bridegroom had the “glengore.” For these

and other analogous crimes this unfortunate lady was “takin to the

Castel-Hill of Edinburghe, and thair bund to ane staik, and brunt in

assis, quick to the death.”[606]

There are also various sarcastic allusions to syphilis by the Scottish

poets of these early days, amply testifying to the fact of its rapid

diffusion both among the followers of the court—who were then the most

common objects of poetical satire—and among the community at large.

William Dunbar, the flower of the old Scottish poets, was, at the period

of the first introduction of syphilis in 1497, in the prime of manhood;

and in two or three years afterwards, viz. in 1500, he was attached to

James IV. and his court by an annual state pension. In a number of

verses addressed to his patroness, Margaret, the Queen of James IV. and

the sister of Henry VIII.—verses which appear to us at the present day,

and with our existing standards of taste, as utterly degraded and

indecent—Dunbar commemorates the communication of the new disease under

the name of the “pockis” and the “Spanyie pokis,” to the Queen’s men (as

he terms them) during the jollities of Fastern’s e’en, and the reign of

the Abbot of Unreason; and he closes his stanzas with an earnest advice

to all youths, to

“Be ware with that perrelous play

That men callis libbing of the Pockis.”[607]

The after effects and consequences of the disease he describes as

follows:—

“Sum that war ryatouss as rammis,

Ar now maid tame lyk ony lammis,

And settin doun lyk scarye crockis,

And hes forsaikin all sic gammis

That men call libbing of the Pockis.”

“Sum thocht thame selffis stark lyk gyandis,

Ar now maid weak lyk willow wandis,

With schinnis scharp, and small lyk rockis,

And gottin thair bak in bayth thair handis,

For ower oft libbing of the Pockis.”

Another and later poet of that age, Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount,

alludes to the occurrence of syphilis at the Christmas feasts in an

inferior officer of the court—viz. in John Mackrery, the king’s

“fule,” or royal jester, who, according to the poet—like many a poor

fool since John’s time—did

“In his maist triumphand gloir

For his reward get the Grandgoir.”[608]

The same author includes this disease elsewhere (p. 147) among the

maladies

“Quhilk humane nature dois abhor,

As in the Gut, Gravel, and Gor.”

A metrical translation of Hector Boece’s _History of Scotland_ was made

in the earlier half of the sixteenth century, apparently by command of

James V. It has been published for the first time, within the last two

years, under the authority and direction of the Master of the Rolls. The

author of this rhyming _Buik of the Chronicles of Scotland_, William

Stewart, when translating Boece’s account of the fatal disease produced

in the old mythical Scotch king, Ferquhard, by the bite of a wolf, tells

us (vol. ii. p. 313) that the resulting gangrenous wound defied the

skill of the leiches, and the fœtor of it, and its discharges were

“Moir horribill als that time for till abhor,

No canker, fester, gut, or yit Grandgor.”

In the celebrated old poem of the _General Satire of Scotland_,

attributed by most authorities to Dunbar, and which, from some

circumstances adverted to in the course of it, is supposed by Sibbald

and Chalmers to have been written in 1504 (seven years after the first

introduction of syphilis), the author deplores the extent to which the

disease had by that time already spread in Scotland, observing—

“Sic losing sarkis, so mony Glengoir markis,

Within this land was nevir hard nor sene.”[609]

In several of the notices which I have just quoted, the new disease,

syphilis, is alluded to under the names of “Gor,” “Gore,” “Grandgore,”

etc. Few maladies have been loaded with a more varied and more extensive

nomenclature. The terms in question, “Gore” and “Grandgore,” are of

French origin, and are old names corresponding to pox and great

pox—“verole” and “grand verole.” In the earlier periods of the history

of syphilis they were terms commonly employed by the French themselves

to designate the affection. To quote one confirmatory sentence from

Astruc (p. 1166), the disease “Gore et Grandgore a Gallis initio vocata

erat.” John le Maire, in his celebrated poem on syphilis, published in

1520, gives this as one of the designations of the disease used at that

time by the commonalty:—

“La nommoit Gorre ou la verole grosse,

Qui n’espargnoit ne couronne ne crosse.”[610]

Old Rabelais, whose _Gargantua_ and _Pantagruel_ are perfect

repositories of the low and licentious French words of the era at which

syphilis first appeared, uses the term Grandgore as a synonym for

syphilis; and in his wild allegorical style he makes the poor and

widowed poet, Rammagrobis, take this grandgore to bed for his second

wife. The term Grandgore seems to have been applied to the disease in

Scotland for a long time after its introduction. For example, the

author of the _Historie of the Kennedys_ quotes a letter written in the

latter part of the sixteenth century by the Laird of Colzean to the

Laird of Bargany, whose “neise was laich,” maliciously suggesting to him

that yet he might lose “sum uther joynt of the Glengoir, as ye did the

brig of your neise.”[611] Still later, or in 1600, the Kirk-Session of

Glasgow requested the magistrates “to consult the chirurgeons how the

infectious distemper of Glengore could be removed from the city.”[612]

In Scotland, as elsewhere, the disease also passed under other

designations. When syphilis first broke out it was frequently, as is

well known, designated from the country or people from whom it was

supposed to have been transmitted. Thus, the Italians and Germans at

first generally spoke of it as the French disease; while the French

talked of it as the disease of Naples; and the Dutch, Flemings,

Portuguese, and Moors, applied to it the name of the Spanish pocks or

Castilian malady. Dunbar, in the Scottish poem already alluded to as

addressed to Queen Margaret, speaks of it, in most of the stanzas, under

the simple title of “pockis,” but in one he gives it, as I have already

hinted, the distinctive and significant appellation of the Spanish

pocks:—

“I saw cow-clinkis me besyd;

The young men to thair howssis gyd,

Had better liggit in the stockis;

Sum fra the bordell wald nocht byd,

Quhill that thai gatt the Spanyie Pockis.”

In two of the Aberdeen Town-Council entries we have already seen the

malady spoken of as “the sickness of Naples.” This name was at first

often applied to the malady. The disease was, however, much more

generally known in Scotland and in the other kingdoms of Europe under

the name of the French pox. The first Aberdeen edict speaks of it in

1497 as the “infirmity come out of France.” In the manuscript Session

Records of the parish of Ormiston for 1662, there is an entry regarding

the malady under the appellation of the French pox, one of the minutes

being—

“The minister, Mr. Sinclair, hath given out to James Ogilvy,

apothecary-chirurgeon, for curing William Whitly, his wife and daughter,

of the French pockis, 35 lbs. Scots.”

Grunbeck and Brandt, who wrote on syphilis in 1496, when speaking of the

diffusion of the disease at that early date over Europe, both allude in

very vague and general terms to its having invaded France, Germany,

etc., and reached as far as Britain.[613] But the earliest specific

notice of syphilis in England which I remember to have met with is in

1502; and in this notice the malady is spoken of under the same name

that I have been adverting to, of “French pox.” The notice in question

is contained in the interesting Privy Purse Expense Book of Elizabeth of

York, the queen of Henry VII., edited by Sir Harris Nicolas. This

charitable lady seems from these records to have had several protégés

under her immediate care and keeping. Among these protégés is entered

John Pertriche, one “of the sonnes of mad Beale.” There are various

articles of expenditure noted in the Queen’s private expense book as

lavished upon this John Pertriche during the currency of 1503; as monies

for his “dyetts,” for buying “shirtes,” “shoyn,” and “hosyn,” “cloth for

a gown,” and “fustyan for a cote” to him. There are twenty pence

expended “for his lernyng;” and the last two items in the account record

attempts of two different and rather opposite kinds to amend the mental

and moral deficiencies of this hopeful youth. These two ultimate items

are—

“For a prymer and saulter (book to John), 20 pence.”

“And payed to a Surgeon whiche heled him of the Frenche pox, 20

shillings.”

To finish this very rough and meagre sketch, let me here add that by the

end of the sixteenth century—and perhaps long before that date—the

malady was abundant enough in England. Writing in 1596, or in the time

of Queen Elizabeth, William Clowes, “one of her Majesties chirurgians,”

observes to his “friendly reader,” “If I be not deceived in mine

opinion, I suppose the disease itselfe was never more rife in Naples,

Italie, France, or Spain, than it is in this day in the Realme of

England.”[614]

PART II.

The preceding notices, however brief and imperfect, relative to the

first introduction and dissemination of syphilis in Scotland, are not

simply matters calculated to gratify mere antiquarian curiosity. They

appear to me to be capable of a much higher application, for they offer

so many elements tending to illustrate the general history of the first

appearance of syphilis in Europe. Besides, we may, I believe, be

justified in drawing from the data they afford several not uninteresting

nor unimportant corollaries, both in regard to the first origin and mode

of propagation of the disease, and the distinction of it from other

affections with which it has sometimes been confounded.

_1st Corollary._—These notices tend to corroborate the pathological

opinion, 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.

Like the numerous list of contemporary authors and physicians quoted by

Astruc, Grüner, and Weatherhead, the Aberdeen edict speaks of syphilis

in the last years of the fifteenth century as a disease hitherto

unknown, “the infirmity come out of France and foreign parts.” The

Edinburgh edict mentions it as “_a_ contagious disease callit the

grandgore.” If it had been previously known, the definite, and not the

indefinite, article would have, in all probability, been employed. And

if such a disease had previously existed on the continent of Europe,

there is every reason to believe that it would have also existed and

been known in Britain. Besides, this reasoning certainly admits of being

inverted and changed, in so far that we may probably lay it down with

equal justice, that if the disease was new, as it would appear to have

been, in Scotland at that time, it was in all probability new also to

the other kingdoms of Europe.

_2d Corollary._—But if syphilis was thus new in Britain in the end of

the fifteenth century, this shows that it is a species of disease

distinct and different alike—1st, from gonorrhœa, and, 2d, from

Greek leprosy, with both of which maladies it has, as is now well known,

been occasionally confounded; for both these maladies existed, and were

abundantly recognised, in this, as in other countries, long before the

era of the introduction of syphilis. Gonorrhœa was early

distinguished by English authors under the name of “burning,” or

“brenning” (_ardor urinæ_, _arsura_, etc.) Thus, Andrew Borde, in his

“_Breviary of Health_,” 1546, speaks of it as the “burning of an

harlotte.” “Burning of harlottes” is also mentioned in Bulleyn’s

_Bulwark of Defence_, 1562. But it is under this same name that

reference is made to the same disease in one of the ordinances enacted

about 1430, for the better regulation of the eighteen brothels that

stood for centuries on the Bankside in Southwark, under the jurisdiction

of the Bishop of Winchester. At the above date it was decreed that “no

stewholder keep noo woman wythin his hous that hath any sickness of

brenning.”[615] This statute was enacted half-a-century before the

introduction of syphilis in England; and nearly a century previously,

gonorrhœa had been accurately described, among others, by John Arden,

surgeon to Richard II., who, writing about 1380, gave a correct summary

of the symptoms, pathology, and treatment of this malady. In an old

English medical poem, evidently written not later than the last part of

the fourteenth century, and published lately by Mr. Stephens of

Copenhagen, there is a receipt for “all maner brenninge” (line 294);

and then follows a series of cures (line 510, etc.)—

“if ye verge be brente

As man of woman may so be schente,

Thorow cas yᵗ womā may be his bote

Off qwom his sekenesse be gan ye rote.”[616]

There is no doubt, further, that gonorrhœa was well known to the

Greek, Roman, and Arabic authors, and is described unmistakably in their

writings.

I might also, if it were here necessary, adduce abundant evidence to

show that the two diseases, Greek leprosy and syphilis, though sometimes

confounded together, were always in general regarded as two entirely

different affections; and that, as such, the hospitals severally

appointed for the reception of those unfortunates labouring under the

diseases in question were kept distinct and separate. Thus, in 1527, the

Carmelite monk, Paul Elia, proposed to the burgomaster of Copenhagen a

plan for an hospital outside the town for “syphilis, cancer, and other

great sores,” similar to the Leper Hospital already existing;[617] for

syphilis had, at an early period of its existence, spread itself into

Denmark.

When syphilis broke out in Edinburgh, in 1497, those affected by it were

not sent to the leper hospital then existing near the town, but they

were ordered off to Inchkeith. In the course of the next century, we

find in the Kirk Session books of Glasgow the two maladies recognised as

distinct, and two separate hospitals devoted to those affected by these

two separate diseases. For on the 20th October 1586, the Kirk Session

“ordains some to visit the leper folks’ house or spittal beyond the

brig, to see how the same, and the dykes of the yards may be reformed,

and that nane be received but town’s folks.” But again, in 1592, the

same Session directed “that the house beyond the stable-green-port for

women afflicted with the Glengore be looked after.”[618]

In a late census of Norway, above two thousand lepers were found in that

small kingdom; but the Scandinavian physicians do not confound together

syphilis and Greek elephantiasis, and have no difficulty in

distinguishing them. Nor have our own colonial professional men in the

East and in the West Indies, where both diseases exist, any dubiety, at

the present day, in recognising them as two totally different and

specific maladies.

_3d Corollary._—As regards the mode or modes in which syphilis was

supposed to be so speedily propagated at its first appearance in Europe,

the Aberdeen and Edinburgh records are both interesting, though in some

respects they offer very opposite testimony on this point.

For some time after syphilis broke out, it was believed, both by medical

men and by the non-medical public, that the disease was communicable,

and constantly communicated from the infected to the healthy by the

employment of the clothes, vessels, baths, etc., used by those already

suffering from it, and by the slightest corporeal contact, or even by

inhaling the same air with them. I might appeal on this head, if it

were necessary, to the individual and general testimony of Schilling,

Torella, Brandt, Massa, and almost every other early continental author,

historical or medical, who mentions the first outbreak of syphilis. Some

even thought that neither the presence of infected persons, nor of

fomites, was always absolutely requisite. In his work, _De Morbo

Gallico_, published in 1551 (above half-a-century after the disease

commenced), Benedict Victorius, of Fienga, like most of his

contemporaries, still maintained that “the state of the air” (to use his

own words), “together with that of the putrid humours, are sufficient to

beget the affection;” and in strong confirmation, he adds, “I myself

happened once to know some honest and religious nuns, who were confined

in the strictest manner, and yet contracted the venereal disease from

the peculiar state of the air, together with that of the putrid humours,

and the weakness of their habit of body.”

The same belief in the easy contagion of syphilis without contact or

intercourse extended to our own country. It was, in particular, strongly

believed that the malady could be propagated from the sick to the

healthy by the medium of the breath. One of the gravest articles of

guilt brought against the celebrated Cardinal Wolsey, when he was

arraigned before the English House of Lords in 1529, was the allegation

that (to quote the _ipsissima verba_ of the indictment, as laid before

Henry VIII.), “whereas your Grace is our Sovereign Lord and Head, in

whom standeth all the surety and wealth of this realm, the same Lord

Cardinal, knowing himself to have the foul and contagious disease of the

great pox, broken out upon him in divers places of his body, came daily

to your Grace, rowning in your ear, and blowing upon your most noble

Grace with his perilous and infective breath, to the marvellous danger

of your Highness, if God of his infinite goodness had not better

provided for your Highness. And when he was once healed of them, he made

your Grace believe that his disease was an impostume in his head, and of

none other thing.”[619]

The notion that the breath of persons having the venereal disease was

infectious seems to have prevailed as late as the reign of William and

Mary. Dr. Oates, in his _Picture of the late King James_ (1696),

says,—“Tom Jones, your quondam chaplain, was afraid to go to old

Sheldon, for fear he should give him the pox by breathing on him.” (Part

II. p. 106.)

The Edinburgh regulations of September 1497 are evidently framed upon

the idea that “the contagious plage callit the grandgore,” as they term

it, was propagated by simple contact, and personal intercourse, or

probably even by the air. Hence their strict injunctions for the removal

and detention of the “infectit, or that hes bene infectit and incurit,”

to their secluded position upon the island of Inchkeith, for “the

eschewing” (to cite again the words of the edict) “of the greit apperand

danger of the infectioune of the lieges.” Indeed, it seems to have been

believed that the disease might be communicated through medical

attendants, or intermediate individuals who were themselves unaffected.

This is at least the natural, or, indeed, the only interpretation of

that part of the edict which enjoined that all persons who take upon

them “to hale the said contagious infirmitie,” go with their infected

patients to Inchkeith; and if they attended and treated such cases

within the city, they did so at the peril of being themselves cauterised

on the cheek with the “marking iron,” and banished without favour

(banisht but favouris) out of the town.

The anxiety of the authors of the Edinburgh regulations to prevent this

supposed medium of communication through a third person is further

displayed in the severity of the punishment—(the application, namely,

of the actual cautery to the face)—denounced against the medical

attendants who should infringe the above edict by not passing to, and

remaining on, Inchkeith. “Lykwayis the saidis personis that takis the

said cure of sanitie vpoun thame, sal be byrnt on the cheike with the

marking irne that thai may be kennit in tyme to cum.”

For some time after the first outburst of the disease, sexual

intercourse with the infected does not seem to have been suspected as

the source and means by which the syphilitic contagion was propagated.

Nor was the local primary affection of the sexual organs generally

noticed by the authors of these times as either a constant or marked

symptom. They were acquainted with, and described, only the secondary

symptoms of the malady—the hideous eruptions on the skin—the ulcers of

the throat—the nocturnal pains in, and lesions of, the bones—while

they mostly all pass over the genital organs, as if they remained

unaffected. So much so was this the case, that we find Montagnana, in

1498, advising not as a means of infection, but rather as a means of

cure, moderate coition; for, in laying down various rules of treatment

to a sick bishop under his care for syphilis, he inculcates, among

other items “coitus vero sit temperatus.”[620]

When treating of this subject, and when speaking of both the usual mode

of the infection of syphilis and its primary local symptoms generally

escaping notice at the era of the first appearance of the disease,

Swediaur observes,—“It is worthy of remark, that although many authors,

since the year 1500, make mention of the genital organs, and say that

syphilis may more generally (ut plurimum) be communicated by coition;

not one before that time (1500) points out the (primary) affection as

essential or characteristic of the disease. All (Swediaur adds) look

upon it as a disease pestilential and contagious without coition, and

even without any direct contact” (vol. i. p. 36). The observations of

Astruc and Girtanner, and other authors on this point, are nearly to the

same effect.

In relation to this question, that of the actual mode and means of

propagation of syphilis, the edict of Aberdeen, in 1497, is particularly

remarkable and interesting, and most fully maintains the character of

the capital of the north for that native shrewdness and sagacity which

the poet Dunbar long ago solemnly assigned to it. We have just now

referred to Swediaur, etc., stating that up to 1500 all European writers

looked upon syphilis as spreading, pestilentially and contagiously,

without coition. Three years earlier, the aldermen and town-council of

Aberdeen seem to have arrived at more just ideas of its laws of

propagation, and to have distinctly suspected impure sexual intercourse

as the mode of communication of the malady. This seems to be fully

borne out by their ordering, “for the eschewing of the infirmitey,” that

(to use the words of the edict) “all licht weman be chargit and ordanit

to desist fra thar syne of venerie;” and we have the usual glowing and

earnest threat of the application of the actual cautery, or “ane key of

het yrne (hot iron) to thair chekis,” in case of disobedience. The later

Aberdeen edicts of 1507, which we have already quoted at length, show,

however, that the rulers of the burgh had been subsequently led to adopt

the erroneous idea of the leading authorities of the day, that the

disease might be transmitted also in the way of common contagions, and

even, perhaps, by the medium of a third person.

_4th Corollary._—The early notices that I have adduced of the

appearance of syphilis in Scotland are curious as proofs of the rapidity

with which the disease travelled, at its first outbreak, over the

kingdoms of Europe. The new malady was, as I have already stated, first

distinctly recognised during the period that Charles VIII. of France

occupied the city of Naples, or rather immediately after he left that

place. The cases of the disease that had appeared previously were not,

at least, anywhere in such numbers, or in such severity, as to excite

any marked and decided degree of attention from physicians or from the

public. That Naples was the locality in which the contagion first burst

forth so extensively and overtly as to be considered almost the source

and cradle of the new epidemic; and further, that this happened at the

precise date of the visit of the French army, seems, as has been

suggested by various authors, to be shown by the very designations

respectively conferred at the time upon the new affection by the

Neapolitans and French. For whilst, as already alluded to, the French,

as is well known, designated it at its first commencement among them the

Neapolitan disease, alleging it to have been communicated to them by the

inhabitants of Naples, the Neapolitans, on the other hand, termed it the

French disease, believing that it had been brought to them by the

victorious army of France. Now the date of Charles’s sojourn in Naples

is well known. His army, in their march through Italy, arrived at Rome

on the 4th December 1494, and entered Naples on the 21st or 22d February

1495; and after remaining three months, they vacated the city on the

20th May. On the 24th of the same month the renowned Spanish general

Cordova landed in Sicily; on the 6th July the battle of Fuornovo was

fought, and next day King Ferdinand returned to Naples; but the last

remains of the French army did not reach France till the end of the

following year. The Aberdeen edict, however, was issued within less than

two years after Charles commenced his march homeward. Or, we may state

the matter otherwise. Columbus arrived at Palos, in Andalusia, after his

first voyage to the New World, on the 15th March 1493, having previously

landed at Lisbon on the 6th, and visited the Portuguese King at

Valparaiso: while Pinzen, the commander of the other remaining caravel

of Columbus’ tiny fleet, was, about the same date, driven northward into

the French port of Bayonne. Possibly one focus or centre for the future

spread and dissemination of syphilis was left in this French port by

Pinzen’s crew, if they brought the infection with them; but I have

nowhere found any allusion to this question. Columbus reached Spain,

from his second voyage, in April 1496. The edict of the Aberdeen

aldermen and council was passed on the 23d April 1497, or exactly four

years and thirty-eight days from the date of Columbus’ first return to

Spain; while the famous ordinance of the Parisian authorities regarding

syphilis was issued on the 6th March 1497, only forty-eight days before

that of Aberdeen.[621]

In reference to the rapidity with which syphilis spread from the south

and middle of Europe to this small and isolated kingdom of Scotland, it

is necessary to remember that in the last years of the fifteenth

century, and during the reign of James IV., the intercourse of this

country with “France, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, and Flanders was (to

quote the words of the Scottish historian, Mr. Tytler) as regular and

uninterrupted, not only in the more solemn way of embassies, but by

heralds, envoys, and merchants, as that carried on with England.”[622]

There was in actual operation, also, at that very date, another medium

by which such a disease was very likely to be carried from the Continent

to our shores, and diffused among the population of the larger towns. In

November 1495, Perkin Warbeck, under the title of Prince Richard, Duke

of York, arrived in Scotland, and was received with regal honours by

King James, who bestowed upon him in marriage his cousin, the Lady

Catherine Gordon. This pretended claimant to the English throne remained

in Scotland till July 1497. He was preceded, accompanied, and followed

to this country by gay and reckless “soldiers of fortune” from the

Continent, Ireland, England, etc.—the men of all others most likely to

transmit and diffuse such a disease as syphilis. These adventurers

appear to have been quartered by the Scottish King upon various towns.

Thus, the town-records of Aberdeen show that, as early as the 5th July

1495,—some months before Warbeck himself arrived in Scotland,—a burgh

tax was imposed “to the sustentacioun of aught Inglismen of the Duk of

Yorkis, direkit to the toune by our souerane lordis hiennes, and his

letteris therapone.”—(_Spalding Club Extracts_, vol. i. p. 57.)

The speed, however, with which the disease thus travelled from the south

of Europe to its western confines has been often employed as an argument

to show that the contagion of syphilis was propagated at its first

introduction by laws different from those which now regulate its

communication. In other words, it has been often alleged that the

disease was then spread from kingdom to kingdom, and from city to city,

by epidemic influences and by general contagion, and not merely by the

slower medium of impure sexual connection. We have just seen such a

doctrine so far belied by the sagacious regulations of the magistrates

of Aberdeen; and when we look to the then existing state of Society,

both on the Continent and in our own country, to the loose manners and

licentious lives of these times, we shall probably find a sufficient

solution of the, at first sight, difficult problem of the rapid

dissemination of the new malady. The morals of the general mass of the

people are ever found to be principally regulated by the example set

before them by the aristocracy and clergy. At the date of the

introduction of syphilis into Europe, the notorious habits of the two

latter ruling bodies were assuredly such as to expedite greatly the

diffusion of the new scourge that had sprung up among them; and hence,

at its first outbreak, we find the disease fixing itself upon several

of the highest members of the continental courts, and of the church. The

Emperor Charles V., and Pope Alexander VI., kings and cardinals, princes

and bishops, peers and priests, are openly and publicly recorded among

its victims by those who personally watched and described the first

ravages of syphilis. In fact the disease was then scarcely, or indeed

not at all, looked upon as conferring any degree of infamy.

In his tract on the malady,[623] published at Rome in the year 1500,

Peter Pinctor mentions by name, and without any reticence, three of the

more illustrious patients whom he had treated for this new

disease—namely, the Prebendary Centez, the Cardinal of Segovia, and his

Holiness the reigning Pope. Writers thought it no imputation on their

own characters to publish an account of the disease as it occurred in

their own persons. The physician Joseph Grunbeck of Burkchausen, in his

essay “De Pestilentiali Scorra sive Mala de Frantzos” (1496), tells his

readers how he himself caught the disease from the atmosphere, when

walking in some fields near Augsburg. One of the earliest adherents and

fiercest champions of the Reformation in Germany was Ulric Hütten, “the

poet and valiant knight of the sixteenth century,” as Merle D’Aubigné

designates him. In 1519, Hütten, though bred to arms, and not to physic,

published a treatise—_De Guiaci Medicina, etc., Morbo Gallico_. In this

treatise he details his own case and sufferings from the disease, how he

had been “utterly vexed with the sycknes,”—had been eleven times

salivated for it, and was at last cured by guiacum. This treatise,

written, as the preface bears, by “that great clerke of Almayne, Ulrich

Hütten, Knycht,” was translated by Thomas Paynell, Chanon of Marten

Abbey, and published in England in 1539. The disease was, in Hütten’s

opinion, produced “throughe some unholsome blastes of the ayre.” His

polemical antagonist, Erasmus, in his _Colloquy of Gamos and Agamos_,

denounced fiercely the character of this reforming and literary

knight:—“Qualis eques (he exclaims) cui per Scabiem vix in sella sedere

liceat!”

In order to show how swiftly a disease, propagated in the way syphilis

is, might overrun the society of continental Europe towards the

conclusion of the fifteenth century, it is only necessary to allude to

the dire and deplorable state of morals among those that ought to have

set an example to the community—namely, the clergy of these days, as

painted by the tongue and pens of their own writers. In an official

sermon published by Martene (tom. ii. p. 1758), and preached in St.

Peter’s at Rome by the Apostolic Auditor prior to the election of the

Pope in the year 1484, the corrupt morals and dishonesty of the whole

church are denounced; and it is added that many do not merely commit,

but triumph even in, such sins as the subversion of chastity and other

virtues (de pudicitia, cæterisque virtutibus subversis, triumphantes).

The frightful licentiousness and obscene orgies of the reigning pontiff,

and of his family and court, which speedily followed, formed a hideous

practical commentary upon this text. A high Romanist who had the honour

of refusing a cardinal’s hat, Claud D’Espence, Rector of the University

of Paris, after exposing the infamy of the taxes of the apostolic

chancery, with its list of “filthy and horrid iniquities” (fœdorum

tamque horrendorum scelerum)—a license for any and all of which could

be purchased—adds, “You shall say we ingenuously confess that God

permits this (Lutheran) prosecution to come upon his church on account

of the sins of men, chiefly of priests and prelates, from whose sins the

Scriptures cry out that the sins of the people are derived.... Is it

wonderful if the malady descend from the head to the members, from the

supreme Pontiff to others?[624] Where under heaven is there a greater

license of all evils (infamia, impudecentia, etc.)?... Truly (adds

D’Espence, and he had personally visited Rome), evils such and so great

that no one can believe but he who has seen, and no one can deny but he

who has not seen....

Vivere qui cupitis sancte, discedite Roma;

Omnia cum liceant, non licet esse bonum.”[625]

Previously another orthodox Roman ecclesiastic, Nicolas de Clemangis,

Archdeacon of Bayeaux, had, in indignant, and, let us hope, in too

sweeping terms, denounced the continental nunneries of these dark days

as little better than brothels, and the taking of the veil as almost

synonymous with a profession of public prostitution:—“Nam quod aliud

sunt puellarum monasteria nisi quædam non dicam Dei sanctuaria, sed

Veneris execranda postibula. Sed lascivorum et impudicorum juvenum ad

libidines explendas receptacula ut idem hodie sit puellam velare, quod

et publice ad scortandum exponere.”[626] Truly in these pre-Reformation

days there was, as Cardinal Bellarmine confesses and laments, “almost no

religion left.”[627]

As far as regarded the predisposing habits and influence of the clergy,

matters were not better in Britain than on the Continent, when the

disease first reached this country. We have already seen Cardinal

Wolsey, the primate of England, publicly accused in Parliament of

labouring under the disease. We can, however, wonder the less at the

disease attacking such a high dignitary, when we recollect that,

according to some writers,[628] there was openly inscribed over the

doors of a palace belonging to this prelate—“_Domus Meretricium Domini

Cardinalis_.” Polydore Vergil, the sub-collector of the Pope’s revenues

in England, speaks, perhaps in exaggerated terms, of the orgies in the

residence of Wolsey, by which he allured at first the young King Henry

VIII. “Domi suae voluptatum omnium sacrarium fecit quo regem frequenter

ducebat. Sermones leporis plenos habebat, etc.”[629] The manners of the

inferior dignitaries of the church offered only too close an imitation

of those of its primate. The commissioners appointed by Henry VIII. to

visit the monasteries of England have recorded a sad, and (even setting

aside the influence of prejudice) probably only too true a picture of

the moral degeneracy of the great mass of the regular clergy of the

time. With some few cheering and honourable exceptions, they found the

occupants of most of the monasteries following lives of degraded vice

and licentiousness, instead of religious purity and exemplary rectitude.

When the visitors received their commissions and instructions, they were

despatched into different parts of the kingdom, at the same time, that

the monks might have as little warning of their approach as possible.

They executed, says the historian Henry,[630] their commissions with

zeal and diligence, and made some curious discoveries almost in every

house, not much to the honour of its inhabitants. Accounts, he adds, of

their proceedings were transmitted by the visitor to the vicar-general,

and they contained sufficient materials to render the monasteries

completely infamous,—for their gross, absurd superstition, their

shameful impositions, their abandoned unnatural incontinency, etc. etc.

Some of the old abbots and friars did not attempt to conceal their

amours, because they knew it was impossible. The holy father, the prior

of Maiden Bradley, assured the visitors that he had only married six of

his sons and one of his daughters out of the goods of the priory as yet;

but that several more of his children were now growing or grown up, and

would soon be marriageable. He produced a dispensation from the Pope,

permitting him to keep a mistress; and he asseverated that he took none

but young maidens to be his mistresses, the handsomest that he could

procure; and when he was disposed to change, he got them individually

provided with very good lay husbands.[631] “These be the men” (exclaimed

Simon Fish, in one of his celebrated public sermons which he delivered

at the period we speak of), “these be the men that corrupt the whole

generation in your realm, that catch the pox of one woman, and bear it

to another; that be burnt with one woman, and bear it to another.”[632]

Clerical morals and manners were not in a much healthier state on the

Scottish side of the Border. Towards the end of the fifteenth century,

we have not on record any such obscene scandal as was detailed in a

previous century in the _Chronicle of Lanercost_ regarding Priest John,

who is alleged to have publicly celebrated phallic orgies among the

young inhabitants of his parish of Inverkeithing,[633] a town which was

certainly a place of no small note and importance in these early days.

But clerical morals were still confessedly in a sad state about the time

that syphilis first appeared in this part of the island. The _General

Satyre_ of Scotland, written, as I have already stated, at the

commencement of the sixteenth century, stigmatises amongst other

things—

“Sic pryd with prellatis, so few till preiche and pray,

Sic haunt of harlettis with thame, baythe nicht and day.”[634]

Queen Mary would seem to have regarded the health of the high Roman

church dignitary who baptized her son James VI. with considerable

suspicion, perhaps, however, only in as much as he was one of a class

with a very bad character in that respect. King James, in “A Premonition

to all most mightie Monarchs, Kings, Free Princes, and States of

Christendome,”[635] thus refers to it:—“For first, I am no apostate, as

the Cardinal (Bellarmine) would make me, not onely having ever been

brought up in that religion which I presently professe, but even my

father and grandfather on that side professing the same: and so cannot

be properly an Heratike, by there own doctrine, since I never was of

their church; and as for the Queene my mother of worthy memorie,

although she continued in that religion wherein she was nourished, yet

she was so farre from being superstitious or Jesuited therein, that at

my Baptisme (although I was baptized by a Popish Archbishop) she sent

him word to forbeare to use the spettle in my baptisme; which was

obeyed, being indeed a filthy, and an apish trick, rather in scorne than

in imitation of Christ; and her owne very words were, that ‘She would

not have a pokie priest to spet in her child’s mouth.’”

Of the dissolute lives of the Scotch, like the other clergy of these

times, we may find ample proof in some of the contemporaneous medical

works. We know, for example, from an old medical author, something of

the inner life of the identical “pockie priest” who baptized James VI.

In 1552, Dr. Jerome Cardan, the famous Italian physician, came from

Milan to Edinburgh to visit professionally the high ecclesiastic in

question—namely, John Hamilton, Archbishop of St. Andrews—who was

suffering under severe and recurrent attacks of asthma. He travelled

with all possible expedition, and in these “good olden times” the part

of his journey from London to Edinburgh only took twenty-three days.

Cardan has left us in his works a copy of the lengthy and very minute

medical and hygienic directions which he drew up for the behoof of the

archbishop. Besides giving him innumerable medical prescriptions, he

lays down for him excellent rules regarding his food, drink, exercise,

sleep, etc., down to the materials of which his bed and his pillows

should be composed. He adds for the Archbishop’s guidance the following

rule—“De Venere. Certe non est bona, neque utilis: ubi tamen contingat

necessitas, debet uti ea inter duos somnos, secilicet post mediam

noctem, et melius est exercere eam ter in sex diebus pro exemplo, ita ut

singulis duobus diebus semel, quam bis in una die, etiam quod staret per

decem dies.”[636]

The quiet and matter-of-course style in which these rules are laid down

and published proves only too strongly the dissolute life of some of the

highest clergy in our land; and in order to appreciate the full force of

this observation, it is necessary to remember that Cardan’s patient was

the living head of the Scottish Roman Catholic church of that day—the

Primate and Metropolitan of Scotland.[637] Perhaps still more

unequivocal evidence of the scandalous profligacy of the Scottish clergy

of these times is to be found in their own statutes, and in the legal

documents of the country.

In a provincial council of the Scottish clergy, held at Edinburgh in

1549, the circumstance that there had come very grave scandals to the

church from the incontinence of ecclesiastics (ex clericorum

incontinentia, gravissima ecclesiæ scandala esse exorta) was taken into

consideration, and the edict of the Council of Basle “De Concubinariis”

put in force. Another edict was passed by this Edinburgh synod

“exhorting” both the prelates and inferior clergy not to keep their own

illegitimate children in their company, prohibiting their promotion of

them in their churches, and forbidding the endowment of them with

baronies out of the church’s goods.[638] But perhaps the dissolute and

depraved state of the Romish church in Scotland is more clearly

photographed in a subsequent edict, which they passed in a large synod

held at Edinburgh in 1558-9. This edict does not “exhort” against

incontinence on the part of the priests, but it simply and shamelessly

restricts, and lays down a legal limit to, the amount of property which

they might unsacrilegiously abstract and purloin from the pious

endowments belonging to the Church (de patrimonio Christi) for the

marriage portions of the bastard daughters of their concubines; the

synod enacting that neither prelates nor any other ecclesiastics should

directly or indirectly give with their illegitimate daughters, in

marriage to barons or other landowners, any greater sum than one hundred

pounds yearly of the Church’s patrimony.[639]

The legitimation of bastard children was necessary before they could

inherit or dispose of property, and exercise other legal rights. The

Privy Seal Records of Scotland for the earlier years of the sixteenth

century have been preserved, and are full of entries of legitimation of

the bastard children of Scottish prelates and priests. Lord Hailes gives

us some sad information regarding the numbers of the illegitimate

children of the Scottish bishops, abbots, and monks of these

times.[640] Among others, he states that David Bethune, the immediate

predecessor of Hamilton in the archbishopric of St. Andrews and primacy

of Scotland, had three bastards legitimised in one day; and afterwards,

Patrick Hepburn, Bishop of Moray, had seven—five sons and two

daughters—all acknowledged in one day. John Leslie, Bishop of Ross,

himself the illegitimate son of an official in the diocese of

Moray—viz. of Gavin Leslie, parson of Kingusie, was the father of

several illegitimate children; and it is, says the learned author of the

_Book of Bon Accord_, sufficiently amusing to find his name among those

of the other members of the chapter of Aberdeen who solemnly counselled

their ordinary to “caus the lay kirkmen within their diocie to reforme

thameselfes in all thair slanderous maner of lyving, and to remove thair

_oppin_ concubins.”[641]

Concubinage among the lower clergy, provided it was not slanderously

open and avowed, would almost seem to have been overlooked and connived

at by the church dignitaries of those degenerate times.[642]

The remains of the old chapel of St. Ninian, at Leith, still exist in

the vicinity of Edinburgh. The spire of the church is, even at the

present day, a conspicuous object above the second harbour bridge,

though the chapel itself and its prebendary are degraded to common

dwellings. This chapel was founded by Robert Bellenden, Abbot of

Holyrood, and endowed for two chaplains. In the charter of foundation,

which is dated 1493 (four years before syphilis broke out in Edinburgh),

it is—in accordance with a common formula in these deeds—ordained that

if “either of the aforesaid chaplains keep a lass or concubine, in an

open and notorious manner, he shall be degraded; which seems,” as the

historian Maitland pertly observes, “to imply this, that they or either

of them might keep a miss or misses provided it were not publickly

known.”[643]

Nor was poverty on the part of a portion of the priesthood apparently

any great obstacle to such, as well as to less sinful indulgences. For,

according to the testimony of honest George Marjoribanks (see his

_Annals of Scotland_, p. 5), “In the yeir of God 1533 Sir Walter Cowpur,

Chaiplaine in Edinburgh, gate a pynte of vyne, a laiffe of 36 unce

vaight, a pock of aite-meill, a pynte of aill, a schiepe-hede, ane penny

candell, and a faire woman for ane xviii^d grote.”

Very shortly before the commencement of syphilis, the dissolute manners

of the English clergy, especially of the regulars, created such noise

and commotion among the laity, that Pope Innocent VIII. sent in 1490 (a

few years before the actual appearance of the disease) to Archbishop

Merton, authorising him to admonish his abbots and priors that “by their

lewd and dissolute lives they brought ruin upon their own souls, and set

a bad example to others.” In obedience to this bull, the Primate sent

monitory letters to the superiors of all convents and religious houses

in his province, admonishing and commanding them, by the authority he

had received from the Pope, to reform themselves and their subjects from

certain vices, of which they were said to be guilty. The monitory letter

that was sent on this occasion to the Abbot of St. Alban’s is published

in Wilkins’s _Concilia_, vol. iii. p. 632. If that Abbot and his monks

were stained with all the odious vices of which the Primate openly

accuses them in this letter, they stood much in need of reformation.

Some of these vices, says Dr. Henry, were so detestable that they cannot

so much as be named in history. “You are infamous,” writes the

Archbishop to the Abbot, for “simony, usury, and squandering away the

possessions of your monastery, besides other enormous crimes.” One of

these crimes was, that the Abbot had turned all the modest women out of

the two nunneries of Pray and Sapwell (over which he pretended to have a

jurisdiction), and filled them with prostitutes; that these nunneries

were esteemed no better than brothels, and that he and his monks

publicly frequented them as such. His Grace seems to have been well and

accurately informed, for he even names some of these infamous women and

their gallants. The monks, too, were at least as profligate as their

Abbot, for they also kept their concubines both within and without the

monastery.

When such was the scandalous life led by some of the clergy, we cannot

wonder that, before the introduction of syphilis, Rabelais (himself at

one time a monk) should apply to the gonorrhœal disease the very

significant term of “rhume ecclesiastique;” or that, after the

appearance of syphilis, this latter and greater malady should have

spread speedily among all ranks, down from the clergy to the laity, and

from the king to the churl, and should have become diffused by such

stealthy but rapid steps over the countries of Europe, as to have at

first been mistaken for a malady spreading itself, not by impure

intercourse, but by general epidemic influences. And when we advert to

the existing state of society in that age, and couple it with such

notices as we have found in the Aberdeen records, we may surely (in

despite of all that has been written to the contrary, both in ancient

and modern times) reasonably doubt whether the laws regulating the

propagation of syphilis in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were in

any degree different from what we know them to be in the nineteenth

century. The Aberdeen edict shows that three hundred and sixty odd years

ago, or in 1497, the common mode of infection of the disease was

precisely the same as all acknowledge it to be at the present day.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] From the _Edinburgh Med. and Surg. Journal_, No. 149.

[2] _Study of Medicine_, vol. i. pref. p. xxiii.

[3] See some learned notices regarding this strange species of

mania (the wolf-madness or wehrwolf of the Germans) in Burton’s

_Anatomy of Melancholy_ (edit. of 1804), vol. i. p. 13, and

Heinrich Hase’s late work on the _Public and Private Life of

the Ancient Greeks_, p. 17. Ploucquet, in his _Literatura

Medica_, gives references to a number of articles and

monographs on the subject under the word “Lycanthropia,” vol.

i. p. 510.

[4] See particularly the Canon De Leprosis of Pope Alexander

III. in the _Monasticon Anglicanum_, tom. ii. p. 365; and

Semler’s _Historiæ Ecclesiasticæ Selecta Capita_, tom. iii. p.

170.

[5] The terms employed by Matthew Paris are quite precise.

“Habent insuper _Templarii_ in Christianitate novem millia

Maneriorum; _Hospitalarii_ vero novemdecim.” _Anglor. Historia

Major_ (ed. of 1644), p. 417. In referring to the subject under

the word “Leprosaria,” Ducange states, “Dominus Matthæus Paris,

_Hist. Angl._ p. 63, affirmat suo tempore fuisse Leprosarias

1900 (19,000?) in toto orbe Christiano.” See his _Glossarium,

Med. et Inf. Latinitatis_, tom. iv. p. 126. At p. 63 of the

Appendix to Paris, the institution of one hospital at St.

Alban’s is referred to; but neither here nor elsewhere in his

work can I find any allusion whatever to the existing number of

leper hospitals in England, or in Christendom in general.

[6] Velley, Villaret et Garnier, _Histoire de France_, tom. ii.

(ed. of 1770), p. 291.

[7] Velley, etc., _Histoire_, ii. p. 292.

[8] Mezeray, _Histoire de France_, tom. ii. 1645, p. 168. “Il

n’y avoit n’y ville, n’y bourgade, qui ne fust obligée de bâtir

un hospital pour les (Lepres) retirer.”

[9] _Antiquitates Italicæ Medii Aevi_, tom. iii. p. 53. “In

Italia vix ulla erat civitas quæ non aliquem locum, Leprosis

destinatum, haberet.”

[10] _Acta Sanctorum a Patribus Soc. Jesu Antuerpiæ Collecta._

Holst in his Work on Radesyge (_Morbus quem Radesyge vocant_:

Christianae, 1817), refers to the works of Smid and Petersen,

as showing that Denmark formerly suffered much from leprous

diseases (morbis Leprosis olim graviter vexatam fuisse), p. 90.

[11] For reference to the prevalence of leprosy and leper

hospitals in Ireland, see Ledwich’s _Antiquities of Ireland_

(Dublin, 1804), p. 370.

[12] Terms manifestly (according to Junius, Johnson,

Richardson, etc.) mere corruptions of the word hospital.

[13] _Manuscript Chartulary of the Priory of Coldingham_, p.

25. Advocates Library, Edinburgh. In the above Latin extract

the original orthography is preserved.

[14] _Liber de Sanctæ Mariæ de Melros._ Presented by the Duke

of Buccleuch to the Bannatyne Club, Edin. 1839, tom. i. p. 70.

See also Morton’s _Monastic Annals of Teviotdale_, 1832, p.

265.

[15] _Stat. Ac. of Scotland_, No. xvi. p. 75.

[16] _Registrum Monasterii de Passelet_, 1163-1529. Presented

by the Earl of Glasgow to the Maitland Club, tom. i. p. 21. I

am indebted to Mr. E. Thomson of Edinburgh, and formerly of

Ayr, for pointing out to me the fact and inference in the text.

[17] See Chalmers’ _Caledonia_, vol. iii. p. 496; and _Records

of the Burgh of Prestwick, from the fifteenth to the eighteenth

century_. Glasgow, 1834, p. 127.

[18] _The Lord of the Isles._ Canto v. Note vii.

[19] _Session Papers_, Advocates’ Library, vol. xxix. Petition

of Colonel Fullarton to the Lords of Council and Session, Jan.

18, 1798, for the patronage, etc., of Kingcase.

[20] _Geographiæ Bleauvianæ_, vol. vi. p. 60.

[21] _Gibson’s History of Glasgow_ (1778), p. 52. _Cleland’s

Glasgow_, 1816, vol. i. 68.

[22] _Burgh Records of Glasgow, from 1573 to 1581_ (printed

1832), p. 1.

[23] _Ibid._ p. 52.

[24] _Ibid._ p. 127.

[25] _Memorabilia of Glasgow_, selected from the Minute Books

of the Burgh, 1588 to 1750 (printed 1835), p. 55.

[26] _Manuscript Records of the Town-Council of Edinburgh_,

vol. vii. p. 168. There would seem to have been a

Leper-hospital belonging to Edinburgh antecedent to that built

at Greenside. At least in the _City Council Records_ for 30th

September 1584, I find a missive for Michael Chisholm and

others, to inquire into “the estait and ordour of the _awld_

(old) fundatioun of the Lipperhous besyde Dyngwall.” The

Castle of Dyngwall, the residence of the Provost of the

adjoining Trinity College, formerly stood on the site of the

Orphan Hospital, behind Shakespeare Square.

[27] _Manuscript Records of the Town-Council_, vol. ix. pp. 9

and 12.

[28] _Ibid._ vol. ix. p. 123.

[29] Pennecuik’s _Historical Account of the Blue Blanket or

Craftsmen’s Banner_. Edinburgh, 1722, p. 135.

[30] _Manuscript Records_, vol. xvii. p. 298.

[31] _Ibid._ vol. xix. p. 210.

[32] _Book of Bon Accord_, 1839, p. 341.

[33] _Book of Bon Accord_, 1839, p. 312.

[34] Kennedy’s _Annals of Aberdeen_, vol. ii. p. 82, and vol.

i. p. 168.

[35] _Registrum Episcopatus Moraviensis_, Edinb. 1837, pp.

77-78. Sir John G. Dalyell’s _Brief Analysis of the Records of

the Bishopric of Moray_, Edinb. 1826, p. 34.

[36] Rhind’s _Sketches of Moray_ (1840), p. 114.

[37] _A Brief Description of Orkney, Zetland, Pightland Frith_,

etc. Edinb. 1701, p. 72.

[38] _View of the Ancient and Present State of the Zetland

Islands_, vol. ii. p. 103. Edinb. 1809.

[39] Vol. ii. pp. 7, 88.

[40] See _Transactions of the Society of the Antiquaries of

Scotland_, vol. i. p. 295.

[41] Boece gives with great gravity the following extravagant

account of the holy origin of the oily well of

Liberton:—“Nocht two milis fra Edinburgh (says he) is ane fontane

dedicat to Sanct Katrine, quhair sternis of oulie springis

ithandlie (where drops of oil rise constantly) with sic

abondance, that howbeit the samin be gaderit away, it springis

incontinent with gret aboundance. This fontane rais throw

ane drop of Sanct Katrinis oulie, quhilk was brocht out

of Mount Sinai, fra hir sepulture, to Sanct Margaret, the

blessit Queene of Scotland; and als sone (as soon) as Sanct

Margaret saw the oil spring ithandlie, be divine miracle, in

the said place, she gart big ane chappell (made be built a

chapel) there in the honour of Sanct Katherine.”—_Bellenden’s

Translation of Boece’s Hystory and Chroniklis of Scotland_, p.

xxxviii.

[42] _Memorial of the Rare and Wonderful Things in Scotland_,

at the end of his _Abridgement of the Scotch Chronicles_.

London, 1612.

[43] _Dyet of the Diseased_, book iii. cap. 19.

[44] _Trans. of the Society of Antiquaries_, vol. i. p. 324.

[45] _The Oily Well; or a Topographico-Spagyrical Description

of the Oily Well at St. Catherine’s Chappel, in the Paroch of

Liberton._ Edinburgh, 1664.

[46] Sir Thomas Murray’s edition of _The Acts of Parliament

made by James the First_, etc. (Edinburgh 1681), p. 18; or T.

Thomson’s edition of _The Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_

(1814), vol. ii. p. 16.

[47] Surtees’ _Antiquities of the County Palatine of Durham_,

vol. i. p. 127.

[48] Nicolson and Burns’ _History of Westmoreland and

Cumberland_, vol. ii. p. 250.

[49] Dugdale’s _Monasticon Anglicanum_, tom. ii. p. 458.

Tanner’s _Notitia Monastica_ (fol. edit.), p. 395.

[50] It may be proper to state that the references made to the

_Monasticon Anglicanum_ throughout the present paper, apply

always to the first edition of that great work, unless when it

is otherwise specified.

[51] In the index to Tanner’s _Notitia Monastica_ (Nasmith’s

folio edition), 509 hospitals, leper-houses, and Maisons dieu

are referred to as having existed in England previously to the

Act for their suppression by Henry VIII. (See a table in

Taylor’s _Index Monasticus_, p. xxv.) We have no collection of

data on which to form any similar general calculation for

Scotland. In Chalmers _Caledonia_ (vol. ii. p. 347) nine

hospitals are stated to have existed in the county of Berwick

alone. In the Scottish Parliament of 1424, an Act was passed

regarding the hospitals “uphaldane to pure folks and seik”

(poor people and sick) throughout the kingdom, and empowering

the chancellor and bishops to “reduce and reforme tham to the

effec of thair first fundacione” (see Thomson’s edition of the

_Scotch Acts of Parliament_, vol. ii. p. 7). Some of the

hospitals in these early times were founded for the reception

of the sick and infirm, others for lepers, many for the poor

and aged, and a considerable number for the gratuitous

entertainment of pilgrims and travellers. Among the whole long

English list I have only found four endowed as lunatic asylums.

A few were instituted for purposes which sound strangely in the

ears of the present generation. Thus the hospital of Flixton,

or Carman’s Spittle, in the parish of Folketon, Yorkshire, was

founded in the time of King Athelstane, to preserve travellers

from being devoured by the wolves and other voracious and

forest beasts of the districts (“pro conservatione populi inde

transeuntis, ne populus ille per lupos et alias bestias voraces

et sylvestres, inibi existentes, devoretur”). See the renewed

charter of Henry VI. in the _Monasticon Anglicanum_, tom. ii.

p. 372.

[52] Bloomefield’s _History of Norfolk_, continued by Parkin.

[53] Taylor’s _Index Monasticus to the Diocese of Norwich_, p.

52, seq.

[54] _Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials in Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 29.

[55] _De Secretis Naturæ_ (Amsterdam ed. of 1790), p. 241.

[56] _British Monachism, or Manners, etc., of the Monks of

England_, p. xv.

[57] _Historiae Ecclesiasticae Selecta Capita_, tom. iii. p.

170.

[58] On the north-west side of the ruins of the Kingcase

Hospital Chapel, Ayr, the burial-place of the leper bedesmen is

still pointed out, but the numerous and marked “undulations of

the green sward” are their only tombstone.

[59] _MS. Records of the Town-Council of Edinburgh_, vol. ix.

p. 123.

[60] _Ancient Records of the Burgh of Prestwick._ Glasgow,

1834, p. 40.

[61] Surtees’ _Durham_, vol. i. 128.

[62] _Index Monast._ p. 55.

[63] _Monasticon Anglicanum_, tom. ii. p. 390.

[64] Paris, _Historia Anglor._ edit. of 1644, Additam. p. 169.

[65] As in the hospital of St. Laurence, Canterbury, which

contained lepers of both sexes. See Strype’s _Life of

Archbishop Parker_, 1791, vol. i. p. 224.

[66] Surtees’ _Durham_, vol. i. p. 286.

[67] In a passage breathing the very spirit and prejudices of

the middle ages, Mezeray states that during all the twelfth

century, two very cruel evils (deux maux tres cruels) reigned

in France, viz. _leprosy_ and _usury_; one of which (he adds)

infected the body, while the other ruined families.—_Histoire

de France_, tom. ii. p. 169.

[68] _Historia Anglor._ etc., Appendix, p. 164.

[69] _De l’Origine de Chevalrie_, chap. ix. p. 126.

[70] _Le Histoire du Clerge Seculier_, etc. See Table from it

in Taylor’s _Index Monasticus_, p. xxvii.

[71] Helyot’s _Histoire des Ordres Religieux_ (edit. of 1792),

vol. i. p. 257.

[72] Rivius’ _Historia Monast. Occident._ (1737), p. 223.

[73] _History and Antiquities of Leicester_, vol. ii. p. 72.

[74] There was in England at least one alien cell of Lazarites,

at Lokhay, Derbyshire, subject to a French house. Tanner’s

_Notitia Monastica_, p. 83.

[75] _Monasticon Anglicanum_, 2d ed. vi. p. 632. _Notitia

Monastica_, p. 239.

[76] _MS. Chartulary of Newbottle Abbey_, p. 205, Advocates’

Library, Edinburgh. Since writing the above I find that

Maitland, in his _History of Scotland_, includes, but without

any references or details, the institution of Lazarites at

Linlithgow, among his meagre list of Scottish Hospitals, vol.

i. p. 269.

[77] _Histoire des Ordres Religieux_, tom. i. p. 264.

[78] _Historical Account of the Blue Blanket_, etc., containing

the fundamental principles of the Good Town (Edin. 1722), p. 6.

Probably the Lazarites are here confounded with the

Hospitallers or Knights of St. John.

[79] Geddes’ _Tracts_. View of all the Orders of Monks and

Fryars in the Roman Church. London (1794), p. 46.

[80] Helyot, tom. i. p. 262, and Moehsen’s _Commentatio Prima

de Medicis Equestri dignitate Ornatis_ (1750), p. 56.

[81] _Bul. Rom._ tom. ii. Const. 95, Pii iv. § 4.

[82] _Abrégé Hist. de l’Ordre de Notre-Dame_, etc., or Helyot,

tom. i. p. 397.

[83] _Testament of Cresseid_ (Bannatyne Club edition, 1824), p.

20.

[84] _Edinburgh Town-Council Records_, vol. ix. p. 123.

[85] See a copy of the charter in Kennedy’s _Annals_, vol. i.

p. 167.

[86] Taylor’s _Index Monasticus_, p. 12.

[87] _Ibid._ See instances at pages 57 and 60.

[88] _Monast. Anglic._ tom. ii. p. 365, and _Hist. Angl._

Scripta edit. Lond. 1652. Coll. 1450, l. 4.

[89] _Life and Acts of Matthew Parker_, by J. Strype, 1791,

vol. i. p. 224-26.

[90] Taylor, ut supra, p. 127, _Table of Revenues_.

[91] Dugdale’s _Mon. Anglic._ 2d ed. vol. vi. p. 652.

[92] _Ibid._ p. 637.

[93] _Val. Ecclesiast. Temp. Henr. VIII._, tom. v. 1825, p.

308.

[94] _Ibid._ p. 645.

[95] _Itinerary through England_, etc. (by order of Henry

VIII.), Hearne’s edit vol. v. p. 105.

[96] _Monast. Anglic._ vi. p. 632; or Thoresby’s _History and

Antiquities of Leicester_, vol. iii. (1790), p. 175.

[97] Paris’ _Historia Anglor._ etc. Additamenta, p. 163.

[98] Sed bene cavendum quod nec putridum, nec corruptum, vel

morticinum illis rogetur.

[99] Surtees’ _History of the County of Durham_, vol. i. pp.

129 and 286.

[100] _Chronicon de Lanercost_ (Edinburgh 1841), p. 241.

_Chronica Th. Walsingham_ in Camden’s _Anglica_, etc. (1603),

p. 113. Hume’s _History of England_ (ed. of 1792), vol. ii. p.

370.

[101] _Histoire de France_, Mezeray, tom. ii. p. 72. Velley,

etc., tom. ii. p. 292.

[102] _Ordonnances des Roys de France de la Troisieme Race_

(1723), tom. i. p. 814.

[103] _Ib. loc. cit._ This Ordonnance is dated Crecy, 16th

August 1321.

[104] Velley, Villaret, etc. _Histoire de France_, vol. vi. p.

239.

[105] _De Morbis Veneriis_, ed. of 1740, p. 7.

[106] Letter to Von Troil, in his work on Iceland, p. 323.

[107] _History of the Holy Warre_ (1647), p. 254.

[108] _General History of Scotland_ (1794), vol. ii. p. 266.

[109] Ingram’s Edit. of the _Saxon Chronicle_, 1823, p. 302. See

also Wharton’s _Anglia Sacra_, tom. i. p. 264—and Gervase, in

Leland’s _Collectanea de Rebus Britannicis_ (Hearne’s Edit.),

tom. i. p. 263. Dr. Lingard, in his _History of England_, vol.

ii. p. 44 of 2d edit., states on the authority of Ordericus

Vitalis, etc., the date of Lanfranc’s death as 1079, which, if

correct, and not a mere misprint, would only add to the force

of the argument in the text.

[110] _Antiquities of Canterbury_, vol. i. p. 42, and vol. ii.

p. 169.

[111] _Eadmeri Historia Novorum sive Sui Seculi_, p. 9.

[112] _History of Northampton_, vol. i. p. 363.

[113] Bishop Tanner’s _Notitia Monastica_, edit. of 1744, p.

211.

[114] Ruel and Hartmann’s _Collectio Conciliorum

Illustratorum_, 1675, tom. iv. p. 100. The Lombards had a

similar law, see Lindenbrog’s _Codex Legum Antiquarum_, 1613,

p. 609.

[115] _Histoire de Bretagne_, Paris, 1707, tom. i. p. 204.

[116] Wharton’s _Anglia Sacra_, tom. ii. pref. p. 32.

[117] _Cambro-Briton_ and _Celtic General Repository_, vol.

iii. p. 199.

[118] Chalmers’ _Caledonia_, vol. ii. 789.

[119] _Liber Cartarum Sancté Crucis de Edwinesburg_ (Bannatyne

Club edit. 1840), p. 6.

[120] _Transactions of the Society of Scottish Antiquaries_,

vol. i. p. 299.

[121] _Chronica de Mailros_, a cod. unico in Bibl. Cott.

servato. Bannatyne Club edition, Edinburgh, 1835, p. 88.

Crawford’s _Genealogical History of the Family of the

Stewarts_, 1710, p. 5. Lord Hailes’ _Annals of Scotland_, ed.

of 1797, vol. i. p. 327. Fordun gives the year as 1178,

probably from a difference in the style of reckoning; see his

_Scotichronicon_, Goodall’s edit. 1759, tom. i. p. 475.

[122] _Registrum Episcopatus Moraviensis_, p. 77.

[123] Tanner’s _Notitia Monastica Huntingdonshire_, ii. 3.

_Monast. Anglicanum_, tom. ii. p. 417.

[124] Paxton’s _Account of the Hospital and Parish of St. Giles

in the Fields_. Stowe in his _Survey of London_ (Strype’s edit.

1720, vol. ii. book iv. p. 74), says it was founded about 1117

(the year preceding Matilda’s death).

[125] _Anglor. Historia Major_, Append. p. 161.

[126] _Monasticon Anglicanum_, 2d ed. vol. vi. p. 620.

[127] _Ibid._ vol. vi. p. 630.

[128] _Book of Bon-Accord_, p. 342.

[129] _Records of Prestwick_, p. 91.

[130] Was it used as a preventative or disinfecting agent? In

some districts in Scotland at the present day all the

attendants upon a funeral are regularly provided with tobacco

and pipes at the expense of the relatives of the dead person.

[131] Sinclair’s _Statistical Account of Scotland_, vol. xii.

p. 346.

[132] _Ancient and Present State of the Zetland Isles_, vol.

ii. p. 102.

[133] _Bartholini De Morbis Biblicis Miscellanea Medica_

(1672), p. 41.

[134] _Faeroae et Faeroa Reserata_, etc. (London, 1659), pp.

101 and 311, and _Acta Medica_, etc. _Hafn._ Tom. i. p. 98.

[135] _Memoires de Medecine for 1782-3_, p. 200.

[136] _Voyage to Iceland_ (1770), p. 172.

[137] _Letters on Iceland_ (1780), p. 121.

[138] _Dissert. Inauguralis de Morbis Islandiae_ (Edinb. 1811),

pp. 12-17.

[139] _Iceland, or the Journal of a Residence in that Island_

(Edinb. 1818), vol. i. p. 295.

[140] _Voyage en Islande et au Groënland_, etc., livr. 11, 12,

14, 15, etc.

[141] _Edinburgh Med. and Surg. Journal_, vol. xviii. p. 102,

or _Amoenitates Academicae_, tom. vii. p. 97.

[142] _Ibid._ No. 132, p. 119. See also Dr. Charlton’s

“Observations on the Norway Hospitals,” _Ib._ p. 105.

[143] _Die Radesyge oder das Scandinavische Syphiloid_

(Leipzig, 1828), p. 57.

[144] _Abrégé Pratique des Maladies de la Peau_ (1828), par MM.

Cazenave et Schedel.

[145] _Practical Synopsis of Cutaneous Diseases_ (edit. of

1829), 411, 412.

[146] _Library of Medicine_, edited by Dr. Tweedie, vol. i.

(London, 1840), p. 418. Among his list of Synonyms, Dr. Schedel

gives “The Tsarath of Moses; Lepra Hebræorum; Lepra Egyptica;

Lepra; Lardrerie,” etc.

[147] “Morbus contagiosus, cutis crassa, rugosa, aspera,

unctuosa, pilis destituta; extremis artubus anæsthesia; facies

tuberibus deformis; vox rauca et nasalis.” _Synopsis Nosologiæ

Methodicæ_ (1772), p. 369.

[148] Class III., Order IV., Genus VIII. _Elephantiasis_; (1)

Skin thick, livid, rugose, tuberculate; (2) Insensible to

feeling; (3) Eyes fierce and staring; (4) Perspiration highly

offensive. Species I. (Tubercular or Arabian Leprosy of

authors.) “(1) Tubercles chiefly on the face and joints; (2)

Fall of the hair except from the scalp; (3) Voice hoarse and

nasal; contagious and hereditary.” Good’s _Physiological System

of Medicine_ (1817), pp. 257, 258.

[149] _De Causis et Signis Morborum_, p. 69. (Leipsic, edit. of

1735).

[150] The disease is still designated in different parts of

Asia and Africa by the same terms, more or less slightly

changed. In his Travels in Africa, Egypt, and Syria (p. 332),

Browne speaks of elephantiasis under the local designation of

_dzudham_; Niebuhr says it is still named in Arabia and Persia

_dsjuddam_ and _Madsjuddam_. (Pinkerton’s _Collection of

Voyages and Travels_, vol. x. p. 170.) In Morocco it is called

at the present day _Jeddem_ and _Murd Jeddem_. (Jackson’s

_Account of the Empire of Morocco_.)

[151] The remark in the text applies to nearly all the numerous

Latin versions made from the Arabic. It is proper, however, to

add, that the translator of the works of Haly Abbas has so far

avoided the error alluded to, by translating the Juzam of his

author by elephanta. With this single exception, the error

might otherwise, I believe, be called universal.

[152] The Arabians (_i.e._ the Latin translators from the

Arabians), and their expositors, as was long ago remarked by

Eustachius Rudius, and as has been often repeated since, “per

Lepram nil aliud intelligunt præter Elephantiasim.”—_De

Affectibus Externarum Corporis Humani Partium_, Venet. 1606, p.

24.

[153] See Bostock’s _History of Medicine_ (New York edition of

1836), pp. 43 and 47, or chapters vi. and vii.

[154] This appropriation of the single term “lepra” for the

designation of Greek elephantiasis is still adhered to by some

modern authors. Thus Plenck, in his celebrated _Nosology of

Cutaneous Diseases_, denominates (after the example of the

translators from the Arabic) the Barbadoes leg “Elephantiasis,”

and applies to the Greek elephantiasis the simple term “Lepra.”

Hence he defines lepra to be “that disease in which the skin,

particularly of the face, becomes rugose and irregular

(_aspera_), and is deformed with large reddish-livid and

chinked tubercles (_rimosis tuberibus_), along with

insensibility of the extremities, and the voice raucous and

nasal.”—_Doctrina de Morbis Cutaneis, quâ hi morbi in suas

Classes, Genera, et Species rediguntur_ (1783), p. 67. See also

Schilling in his _Commentatio de Lepra_ (1778), p. 2. etc.

[155] As in the works on Cutaneous Diseases by Turner

(_Treatise of Diseases incident to the Skin_, 1736), p. 2; and

Lorry (_Tractatus de Morbis Cutaneis_), p. 376, etc. etc.

[156] _Memoires de la Societé Royale de Medecine_ for 1782-3,

p. 170. Alibert employs this term in his _Monographie des

Dermatoses_ (1835), tome ii. p. 270.

[157] “_Elephantiasis_ a vulgo Medicorum _Lepra_ vocata et

quibusdam _Sancti Lazari morbus_.” “Elephantiasis quam vulgus

male Lepram appellitat.” See pp. 680 and 716 of the “Libri

quinque Institutionum Chirurgicorum Joannis Tagaultii,” in

_Uffenbach’s Thesaurus Chirurgiae_ (Francof. 1610).

[158] “Chirurgia secundum Medicationem Hugonis de Luco” (_in

Arte Chirurg. Scriptorum Collect._; Venice, 1546), p. 175.

[159] “Chirurgia Magna et Parva.” In the same collection of

Surgical works, p. 207, 208.

[160] _Breviarium practicae a Capite ad plantam Pedis._ Brev.

ii. cap. 46.

[161] _Philoneum Pharmaceuticum et Chirurgicum de medendis

corporis affectibus_; Frankfort, 1599, p. 659.

[162] “Lilium Medicinæ inscriptum de Morborum prope omnium

curatione,” vide _Opera Medica_ (Lugd. 1574), p. 49, _sqq._

[163] _Chirurgiae Tractatus_ vii. (Lugd. 1572), p. 307, _sqq._

[164] _Pro conservandâ Sanitate_, etc., _Liber utilissimus_

(Mogunt. 1531), c. 202.

[165] _Chirurgiae Libri Sex._ (Venet. 1533), lib. v. 23.

[166] _Selectiorum operum, in quibus Consilia_, etc.

_continentur_ (Lugd. 1525), Consil. 299.

[167] _Consilia secundum viam Avicennae ordinata_ (Lugd. 1535),

Consil. 299.

[168] _Les Oeuvres d’Ambrose Paré_ (Lyons, 1652), p. 476, etc.;

or Uffenbach’s _Thesaurus Chirurgiæ_ (Frankfort, 1610), p. 428,

etc.

[169] _Joannis Fernelii Ambiani Universa Medicina_ (Geneva,

1680), pp. 579 and 517.

[170] _Julii Palmarii Constantini, Medici Parisienis, de Morbis

Contagiosis Libri Septem_ (Frankfort, 1601), pp. 257-326.

[171] _Opera Observationum et Curationum quæ extant Omnia_

(Frankfort, 1646), p. 973.

[172] See in Gesner’s Collection _De Chirurgiâ Scriptores_,

etc. (Tiguri 1555), a tract entitled “Examen Leprosorum.”

Gregory Horst, _Operum Medicorum_, tom. ii. (Norimberg, 1660),

p. 127. Franciscus de Porta, _Medicæ Decad._ cap. xxx. lib. 4.

Von Forrest’s _Observationes Medicæ et Chirurgicæ_, lib. iv. p.

103. Schenckius, _Observationum Medicarum Rariorum Libri

Septem_ (Frankfort, 1665), p. 803.

[173] Several of the authors quoted above, divide the _species_

Lepra into four modifications or varieties: the Lepra Leonina,

Lepra Elephantia, Lepra Alopecia, and Lepra Tyria. This

division, which some of them freely allow to be founded more in

theory than in nature, seems to have been first proposed by

Constantinus Africanus. (_De Morborum Cognitione_, chap. 17.)

Like the fanciful fourfold subdivision of other diseases, it

was made in correspondence with the Hippocratic and Galenic

doctrine of the four humours. Theodoric, Arnald, Gilbert, and

the other authors who, in accordance with the pathological

creeds of the time, were led to adopt it, attribute each

particular variety to the operation and predominance of a

particular humour. John of Gaddesden has attempted, in his

_Rosa Anglica_, to dress up different medical doctrines in rude

Latin hexameters, and amongst others, he announces the doctrine

in question in the five following lines:—

Sub specie tetrâ deturpat corpora LEPRA;

TIRIA prima datur, de _flegmate_ quae generatur;

Turpe pilos pascens ALOPICUS, _sanguine_ nascens;

Fitque LEONINA, _colera_, fervente canina;

De _Mel_ _(Melancholia)_ fit tristis ELEFANTIA, tristior istis.

[174] The _History of Physick_, 5th edit. 1758, vol. ii. p. 263.

[175] Freind, p. 262.

[176] Sprengel, vol. ii. p. 448.

[177] _Bernhardi Gordonii Opera Medica_, Lugd. 1542, pp. 48 and

49.

[178] _Ib._ p. 54.

[179] See Freind, Sprengel, Eloy, etc.

[180] In the _Biographie Universelle, ancienne et moderne_,

Paris, 1813, tom. viii. p. 293, a third Pope, Innocent VI., is

added to this list.

[181] _Chirurgiae Libri Septem_, Lugd. 1572, p. 307, _sqq._

[182] _Gilberti Anglici Compendium Medicinae, tam morborum

universalium quam particularium, non solum medicis sed et

chyrurgicis utilissimum._ Vienna, 1510.

[183] Eloy’s _Dictionnaire Historique de Medecine, Ancienne et

Moderne_, 1778, tome ii. p. 349. Aitkin’s _Biographical Memoirs

of Medicine in Great Britain_, 1780, p. ix.

[184] Freind’s _History of Medicine_, 5th edition, vol. ii. p.

268.

[185] _Compendium Medicinæ_ (ut supra), p. 340.

[186] _Nosologia Methodica_, tome v. p. 229. Before citing

Gilbert’s description, Sauvages observes, “Plures hujus morbi

(Elephantiasis) varietates sunt quarum nomina et signa ex

Gilberto Anglo mutuabimur, loco Leprae Elephantiasin

nominando.”

[187] _Memoires de Medecine et de Physique Medicale tirés des

Registres de la Societé Royale de Medecine_, Années 1782-83, p.

200. Speaking of the Greek elephantiasis, or elephantiasis

legitima of Sauvages, they observe “on ne trouvoit nulle part,

pas même dans Arétée de Cappadoce, une exposition plus claire

que celle qui a été donnée par Gilbert, Medecin Anglois du

seizieme (?) siecle.”

[188] Sprengel’s _Histoire de la Medecine_ (Jourdain’s

translation). Tome ii. p. 404.

[189] Anthony Wood’s _Athenae Oxonienses_, p. 87.

[190] Wood gives his name as entered in an old College

Catalogue in 1320. He compiled his book between 1305 and 1317:

Freind, vol. ii. p. 277; and Eloy, vol. ii. p. 287. See also

Hutchison’s _Biographia Medica_, vol. i. p. 323; and Aitkin’s

_Biographical Memoirs_, p. ix, etc.

[191] Guy de Chauliac entitles Gaddesden’s book (probably with

more truth) “una _fatua_ Rosa Anglica.”

[192] _Rosa Anglica quatuor Libris distincta_ (Papiae, 1492),

lib. ii. cap. vii. p. 55; or _Joannis Anglici Praxis Medica,

Rosa Anglica dicta_ (Schopf’s edit. 1595), p. 1076, _sqq._

[193] _Rosa Anglica_, p. 1079. The editor, Schopf, appends to

this passage a rubric, stating the above sound counsel as

“Decretum Joannis Angli de Leprosis.”

[194] Pitt places him about 1360: Eloy, vol. ii. p. 354;

Freind, vol. ii. p. 293.

[195] From the old translation of Glanville’s work, _De

Proprietatibus Rerum_, by John Trevisa, Vicar of Barkley. See

_Phil. Trans._ vol. xxxi. p. 59.

[196] _Eccles. Dunelm. Hist._ l. liii. f. 56, a; vide

_Monasticon Anglicanum_, tom, ii. p. 437, a.

[197] Bernhard Gordon of Montpellier, whose description of the

disease I have already quoted, has been sometimes alleged to be

a native of Scotland, see Sprengel’s _Histoire_, ii. p. 447;

but without any other evidence whatever than that derivable

from his Scottish surname.

[198] _The Testament of Cresseid_, compylit be M. Robert

Henrysone, Sculemaister in Dunfermeling. Imprentit at

Edinburgh, 1593. Reprinted by the Bannatyne Club, Edinburgh,

1824. The poem has been published, without the name of the

author, in Godfray’s and most other later editions of Chaucer’s

Works.

[199] This complication was not so common as to be regarded as

a constant and pathognomonic sign of Greek elephantiasis, but

it is noted as an important and frequent one, by various

authors, both ancient and modern. Hally-Abbas tells us, in our

diagnosis of a case of the disease, to be particular in

examining “album oculorum ne forte turbatum est” (Lib. i. cap.

xxiv.); Rhazes attributes great value as a diagnostic mark of

his Juddam or elephantiasis to the “conturbatio albedinis

oculorum” (Lib. v. cap. cxx.); Avicenna, among his incipient

signs, states “et apparet in oculis obfuscatio ad rubedinem

declivis” (Lib. iv. Fen. iii. Fr. 3, cap. ii.) Not to multiply

examples, I may merely mention that Theodoric, in the

thirteenth century, places early among his list of signs

“oculorum in albedine lividitas” (Lib. iii. cap. lv.); see also

Lanfranc (Doct. i. Tr. iii. c. 7, albedo oculorum obfuscator);

Arnald of Villeneuve (Brev. ii. c. 46, multum rubeae); Gilbert

(Lib. viii. oculi circulos habent rubros), etc. Dr. Heberden,

in his account of the tubercular leprosy in Madeira, states, in

regard to a case, “that the confirmed elephantiasis was

attended with _livid_ and scirrhous tubercles, which had

overspread the face and limbs; the whole body was emaciated;

the eyebrows inflated; the hair of the eyebrows fallen off

entirely; the bones of the nose depressed; the _alae nasi_

tumefied, as likewise the lobes of the ears; _with a suffusion

in both eyes_, which had almost deprived the patient of sight,”

etc.—_Medical Transactions of the College of Physicians_, vol.

i. p. 35.

[200] I give the term “livid” as synonymous with the old Scotch

term “haw,” under the idea that it expresses in all

probability, as nearly as possible, the meaning of the author.

The Scottish writer Gawin Douglas renders the Latin adjectives

“caeruleus” and “glaucus,” by the adjective “haw,” in his

celebrated translation of “The xiii. bukes of Eneados of the

famose poet, Virgill, out of Latyne verses, into Scottish

meter.” For the occasional livid colour of the lumps or

tubercles in the face, see the extract in the preceding note

from Dr. Heberden, and the modern descriptions quoted in a

previous page from Bateman and Schedel.

[201] Since writing the above, I have met with the following

interesting notice in the still earlier voyage of Martin to St.

Kilda, the most westerly island of the Hebrides. Describing his

visit to St. Kilda, in 1697, he states, “Some thirteen years

ago, the Leprosy broke amongst the inhabitants, and some of

their numbers died of it. There are two families at present

labouring under the disease. The symptoms of it are, their feet

begin to fail; their appetite declining; their faces becoming

too red, and breaking out in pimples; a hoarseness, and their

hair falling off from their heads; the crown (?) of it

exulcerates and blisters; and, lastly, their beards grow

thinner than ordinary.”—_Voyage to St. Kilda_ (first published

in 1698), p. 40 of edition of 1749.

[202] _MS. Medical Annotations_, vol. iii. p. 226.

[203] “The Moderator proposed to the session, that, considering

that a Gracious Providence had not only delivered the Island

and country from the burden and necessity of maintaining and

otherwise providing for the poor Lepers, formerly in this

Island, but had also put a stop to the spreading of that

unclean and infectious disease, so that there is no appearance

of the symptoms thereof in any person now in this place, the

Session should therefore ordain a day to be set apart for

solemn thanksgiving for so great a deliverance throughout this

ministry excepting Fowla, which we can have no access to

probably to inform. The Session having heard the Moderator’s

proposal, were cordially satisfied therewith, and did agree

unanimously that a day be set apart for solemn thanksgiving on

the above account throughout the bounds of the ministry,

excepting Fowla, as above said.” (Extracts from the MS. Session

Register of Walls, under date of 17th March 1742.) The 19th May

1742 was held as the day of thanksgiving, as appears from a

subsequent entry.

[204] _Færoæ et Færoa Reserata_ (London, 1659), pp. 310, 311.

[205] Mackenzie’s _Travels in Iceland during the summer of the

year 1810_; or _Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal_, vol.

viii. pp. 202, 203.

[206] Von Troil’s _Letters on Iceland_, p. 123; Barrow’s _Visit

to Iceland in the summer of 1834_, pp. 289 and 294.

[207] Pontoppidan’s _Natural History of Norway_, containing an

account of its Climate, etc. etc. (London translation, 1755),

pp. 261, 262.

[208] See Wellhaven’s account, extracted from the _Transactions

of the Stockholm Society_, vol. iii. pp. 188-200, into

Hunefeld’s “Essay on Radesyge,” pp. 38-56.

[209] See pp. 110-117 of the excerpta in Hensler’s learned

work, _Vom Abenländischen Aufsatze im Mittelalter_. (Hamburg,

1790.)

[210] The disease seems to be noticed under the name of

Skyrbjugr in some of the oldest Iceland records. (See Olassen’s

_Islansk Urtagaard Bok_, p. 172; and Back, in Von Troil’s

_Letters on Iceland_, p. 324.) Munch and Hunefeld suggest, with

no great probability, that it might have been carried to the

north by the expeditions which, during the ninth and tenth

centuries, were made upon the Norman coast by Rolf and others.

(See Hunefeld’s _Radesyge oder das Scandinavische Syphiloid_,

p. 57.)

[211] I have already referred to Bartholin in relation to its

former prevalence in the Faroe Isles and Iceland. Writing in

1672, he states that in these parts leprosy “_fuisse olim

familiarem_” (_de morbis Biblicis in Mis. Med._ p. 41). Jonas,

Pastor of Hitterdale in Iceland, wrote in 1662 to the

celebrated Sir Thomas Browne, “Nullus _elephantiasi_ vel

abominabilior vel pestilentior hic existimatur, et tamen

postremo hoc seculo pavendus se diffundit.” (Wilkin’s edition

of Sir Thomas Browne’s Works, including his _Life and

Correspondence_, vol. iv. p. 261.)

[212] The date of admission to the church of one of the priors

of the hospital.

[213] _Synopsis of Cutaneous Diseases_, p. 419.