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