  GREAT BRITAIN.—SYPHILITIC DISEASES. First Recognition in England.—Regulations of Henry VI.—Lazar Houses.—John of Gaddesden.—Queen Elizabeth’s Surgeon.—Popular Opinions.—Proclamation of James IV. of Scotland.—Middlesex and London Hospitals.—Army.-Navy.—Merchant Service.—St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.—Estimated Extent of Syphilis. The best English and French writers are of opinion that syphilis, as it exists at present, has, in some shape or another, always existed among mankind, although it was not known to science or history, in a distinct manner, until the middle of the fifteenth century. The period at which syphilis first made its appearance in England is involved in obscurity, but we know that it began to attract attention early in the fifteenth century. The first official recognition of it found on record is a police regulation of the year 1430, during the reign of Henry VI., excluding venereal patients from the London hospitals, and requiring them to be strictly guarded at night. In the time of Henry VIII. there were six lazar houses in London for the reception of venereal patients, namely, at Knightsbridge, Hammersmith, Highgate, Kingsland, St. George’s Gate, and Mile-End. These localities were doubtless fixed upon as being some distance from the city. That the disease, however, must have been known long before the period above specified is certain, from passages which are to be found in the writings of the previous century. John of Gaddesden, who wrote in 1305, and who was a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, thus speaks of the possibility of contracting the disease from leprous women: “Ille qui concubuit cum muliere cum qua coivit leprosas puncturas intra carnem et corium sentil et aliquando calefactiones in toto corpore.”[320] Mr. Wm. Acton, upon whose pages as an English standard writer on this subject we draw largely, is of opinion that leprosy, which was formerly so common in Europe, consisted merely of what we now call secondary syphilis. Some of the Jewish observances were no doubt dictated by a scientific appreciation of the influences which predisposed the body to the effects of syphilitic virus. The practice As to the type of the disease in former times, there seems no ground for believing that it was more severe than at present, while its numerical importance must have been much smaller. The following extract is from a treatise by Queen Elizabeth’s surgeon: “If I be not deceived in my opinion, I suppose the disease itself was never more rife in Naples, Italie, France, or Spain, than it is in this day in the realme of England. I may speak boldly because I speak truly; and yet I speake it with grief of minde, that in the Hospital of St. Bartholomew, in London, there hath been cured of this disease by me and three others, within five years, to the number of one thousand and more. I speak nothing of St. Thomas’s Hospital, and other houses about the citie, wherein an infinite number are daily cured. It happened very seldom in the Hospital of St. Bartholomew while I staid there, among every twenty diseased that were taken into the said house, which was most commonly on the Monday, ten of them were infected with the lues venerea.”[321] It was supposed, in former ages, that syphilis was transmissible by personal communication, touching the clothes, drinking out of the same vessels, or even breathing the same air with infected persons, and accordingly we find the lower orders of people driven out into the fields to die, and physicians refusing to attend the sick for fear of infection. Some writers, indeed, doubted this kind of contagious influence, and held that it required intercourse, or at least contact. But nobles, and especially the clergy, preferred to ascribe their maladies to misfortune rather than to licentiousness, and sought to “put down” such innovating doctrines. The consequence was that patients were shunned universally, and left to die or get well without assistance. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that in numerous instances the disease should assume its most inveterate aspect, and hence the notices found among many old writers as to the supposed malignancy and incurability of what they were disposed to consider a newly-imported malady. That the disease, in reality, differed little from that which exists in our day, is proved by the fact that cases of the once formidable Black Lion are occasionally to be met with in the London hospitals. In 1497, James IV. of Scotland, in consequence of the frightful prevalence of venereal disease in his kingdom, issued a proclamation banishing the infected from Edinburgh. His majesty “charges straitly all manner of persons being within the freedom of this burt, quilks are infectit, or has been infectit, uncurit with this said contagious plague, callit the grandgor devoyd, red and pass furt of this town, and compeir upon the sandis of Leith at ten hours before none; and thair sall thai have and find boatis reddie in the havin ordainit to them by the officers of this burt, reddy furneist with victuals, to have them to the Inche (Inchkeith), and thair to remain quhill God provyd for thair health.” Those evading this ordinance “salle be byrnt on the cheik with the marking irne, that thai may be kennit in tym to cum.” A remnant of this barbarous system was retained in the regulations of Middlesex Hospital, London, by which an admission fee of forty shillings sterling (ten dollars) was directed to be paid by venereal patients. The reason assigned for it was, that a hospital intended for the virtuous might not be made subsidiary to purposes of vice. The regulation, however, became a nullity, and was repealed, owing principally to the fact that the work-house guardians were in the habit of paying the forty shillings and sending in pauper patients, well knowing that the cost of cure in the work-house would far exceed the admission fees. In the London Hospital a similar regulation exists even now, but is openly evaded, however, by the house surgeon describing the disease as a cutaneous one. The extent of this disease in Great Britain is matter of opinion alone. There are no positive data whatever upon which to form any conclusion with respect to the general population, while the hospital lists are very imperfectly kept, and it is only in the army and navy returns that we can find any real assistance. BRITISH ARMY. The army reports quoted extend over a period of seven years and a quarter, and enter into the details of the various venereal affections of the soldiers, amounting to the aggregate strength of 44,611 quartered in the United Kingdom. The cases admitted into hospitals were:
Ratio: 181 per 1000 men, or nearly one in five in the whole number. These returns show that the venereal disease is of much more frequent occurrence in the British than in the Belgian army. BRITISH NAVY. The navy reports extend over a period of seven years, and include 21,493 men, employed on home service; that is to say, on the coasts or in the ports of Great Britain. Of this number, 2880 were attacked with venereal disease. Ratio: one in seven. BRITISH MERCHANT SERVICE. The returns of the “Dreadnought,” hospital ship for seamen of all nations, extend over a period of five years, during which 13,081 patients, laboring under surgical and medical diseases, were admitted. Out of these, 3703 came under treatment for venereal affections, showing a ratio of two in seven. As a mode of testing these returns, we turn to the analysis of the surgical out-patients of Messrs. Lloyd and Wormald, assistant surgeons of Saint Bartholomew’s, the largest of the London hospitals. These out-patients are attended gratuitously by the hospital officers:
These cases were part of a total of 5327 general patients. This last item alone would not enable one to form any idea of the number of sufferers from this terrible scourge. There are in Again, on the number of single men and widowers in London above twenty years of age (upward of a quarter of a million), the venereal cases, if in the same proportion as among soldiers and sailors, would in the same period amount to 30,000 and upward. There is, however, another way of conjecturing the amount of disease introduced into the community by prostitution, which English writers have adopted. The Medico-Chirurgical Review, a periodical of high standing, speaking of the extent of venereal disease and its effects on the population, says: “There is every reason to believe that, to represent the public prostitutes of England, Wales, and Scotland, fifty thousand is an estimate too low. We presume there will be no objection made to the assumption that, unless each of these fifty thousand prostitutes submitted to at least one act of intercourse during every twenty-four hours, she could not obtain means sufficient to support life. The result of the evidence contained in the first report of the Constabulary force of England was that about two per cent. of the prostitutes of London were suffering under some form of venereal disease. But yet we will descend even lower, and presume that of one hundred healthy prostitutes, if each submits to one indiscriminate sexual act in twenty-four hours, not more than one would become infected with syphilis; an estimate which is, without doubt, far too low, yet, if admitted to be correct, the necessary consequence will be, that of the fifty thousand prostitutes, five hundred are diseased within the aforesaid twenty-four hours. “If we next admit that a fifth of these five hundred diseased women are admitted to hospitals on the day on which disease appears, it follows there are every day on the streets four hundred diseased women. Let it be supposed that the power of these four hundred to infect be limited to twelve days, and that of every six persons who, at the rate of one each night, have connection with these women, five become infected, it will follow that there will be four thousand men infected every night, and, consequently, one million four hundred and sixty thousand in the year. Farther, as there | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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