The Plague of Lust, Vol. 2 (of 2) / Being a History of Venereal Disease in Classical Antiquity

by Julius Rosenbaum

Second Part.

---

[§ 21.]
Irrumation and Fellation.

(Irrumare, Fellare).

Very much more abominable and repulsive still is the habit of Irrumation[1] (penem in os arrigere est irrumare—to erect the penis and insert it into the mouth of another person) and the practice of the Fellator[2] (si quis vel labris vel lingua perfricandi atque exsugendi officium peni praestat—one who with the lips or the tongue performs the office of rubbing and sucking another’s penis). This the Greeks called λεσβιάζειν (to follow the Lesbian mode), because the vice was especially practised by the Lesbian women, though in common with all others of the sort it came originally from Asia. Lucian in his Pseudologista[3], in which he severely criticizes the the dissolute Timarchus, who had taken the expression ἀποφρὰς (unmentionable) in ill part, says: “By the gods, what should make you fly into a passion, since it is a matter of common report that you are a Fellator and a Cunnilingus[4]. Are you as much in the dark as to the meaning of these words as you are about that of ἀποφρὰς (unmentionable)? and do you take them for titles of honour? Or is it that you are now accustomed to them, but not to ἀποφρὰς, and so wish to erase it as something unknown to you from the list of your Titles? (ch. 28).—I am well aware what were your practices in Palestine, in Egypt, in Phoenicia and Syria, as well as in Hellas and Italy, and above all just now in Ephesus, where you set the crown on your extravagances, (ch. 11).—However you will never persuade your fellow-citizens that they ought not to regard you as the filthiest of all men, the very refuse of the whole city. Now it may be you rely on the belief of the generality in Syria, that you have never been accused (there) of any guilt or vice. But by Hercules! the city of Antioch looked on at the whole history, when you carried off the young man who came from Tarsus, and—but there, it would not become me to go over such ground again. All who were there know the facts and remember it all, that time when they saw you sitting at his knees (καὶ σὲ μὲν ἐς γόνυ συγκαθήμενον ἰδόντες), and doing you know very well what to him, that is if you have not utterly and entirely forgotten the whole matter, (ch. 20).—But when they caught you lying at the knees of the son of Oinopion the Cooper (τοῦ μειρακίου ... ἐν γόνασι κείμενον—lying at the knees of the stripling), what make you of that? Did they not surely take you for a man of the sort to be expected, when they saw you doing such a thing? (ch. 28).—How, by Zeus! after such a deed, have you the effrontery to give us the kiss of salutation?—Sooner kiss an adder or a viper? The danger and pain of the bite a Physician may yet remove, if called in. But after your kiss and with such poison on his lips who dare draw near to Temple or altar? What god would listen to the suppliant? how many vessels of holy water, how many lustrations, would be needful? (ch. 24).—In Syria you are known as ῥοδοδάφνη (rose-laurel)[5]; why, a man cannot explain for very shame, great Athené!—But in Palestine as φραγμὸς (the hedge)[6], on account of the prickles of your beard, I suppose. In Egypt again as συνάγχη (sore throat),—and this is a well known business. It must have been a close thing with you not to be choked, that time you came across the sailor of a three-master, who fell upon you and stopped your mouth for you (ὃς ἐμπεσὼν ἀπέφραξέ σοι τὸ στόμα).”

This passage brings us next to a gloss of the Pseudo-Galen[7], on which Naumann[8], after laying down his view as to the Morbus phoeniceus (Purple Plague),—a subject to be discussed presently,—goes on to express himself thus: “However we must go yet farther. In the above cited work of the Pseudo-Galen is included an Index of words, which with a high degree of probability we may conclude to refer to Venereal diseases, so far as known to the Ancients (loco citato, under word στρυμάργου, p. 142). We read there that Dioscorides called στρυμάργους or στομάργους (evil-mouthed) men in whom the longing for sensual indulgence had risen to frenzy. Of similar meaning to this would seem to be the expressions μυοχάνη (maxillarum hiatu insignis—conspicuous for the wide opening of the arm-pits) or μυσάχνη (meretrix—prostitute), μῦσος (facinus abominandum—an abominable act), σαράπους (crura ambulando divaricans—straddling the legs in walking), and γρυπαλώπηξ (from γρύπος curvus—curved, hooked,) probably denoting the erection of the penis; at any rate a dissolute man is called in Aristophanes κυναλώπηξ (fox-dog). But most notable is the added observation, to the effect that Erasistratus called such persons ῥινοκολοῦροι (i.e. qui mutilati naribus sunt—men who have been mutilated in their noses). Just at the time of the Greek occupation of Egypt, Rhinocorura or Rhinocolura was the name of a wretched sort of “Botany Bay” situated at the North-Eastern extremity of the country, lying in the desert on the shores of the Mediterranean between Gaza and Pelusium, and serving as a place of residence for lepers (Pliny, Hist. Nat., Bk. V. ch. 4. Livy, Hists. Bk. XXXV. ch. 11). Now if we bring together all the information given here, and especially if we consider the various shameful forms of indulgence of the sexual impulse and the mutilation of the nose that is connected with them, there cannot be much doubt left that these ancient and fragmentary notices refer to Venereal evil, whether in conjunction with leprous affections or not.”

But to test the correctness of these explanations and conclusions, it will be necessary first of all to quote the gloss itself in full: στρυμάργου. οἶδε καὶ ταύτην τὴν γραφὴν ὁ Διοσκουρίδης, οὐ μόνον τὴν στομάργου, ἀλλὰ καὶ τοῦτο οὐχ ὡς κύριον ὄνομα ἐξηγεῖται, ἀλλὰ τὸν μανικῶς ἐπτοημένον περὶ τὰ ἀφροδίσια δηλοῦσθαί φησιν· εἰρῆσθαι γὰρ παρὰ τῷ Ἱπποκράτει καὶ ἀλλὰ πολλὰ κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον ἐπίθετα, καθάπερ μυοχάνη, σαράπους, γρυπαλώπηξ· ἀλλὰ καὶ παρ’ Ἐρασιστράτῳ φησὶν ὁ ῥινοκολοῦρος, that is to say:—στρυμάργου: Dioscorides knows this form also, not merely that of στομάργου, but this too he regards not as a proper name, but says that it signifies one who is madly set upon love-indulgences; for that in Hippocrates as well many other epithets of the same sort (which refer to the same sort of vice) are mentioned, e.g. μυοχάνη, σαράπους, γρυπαλώπηξ; also he says that in Erasistratus (the expression) ῥινοκολοῦρος is found.

The reader sees in the first place that it is not merely expressions peculiar to Dioscorides that are here cited, as we might be led to suppose by Naumann’s statement, but that they are every one of them found, as we shall presently prove more particularly, in Hippocrates, the ῥινοκολοῦρος of Erasistratus of course excepted. Dioscorides mentions them only in his commentary on the Second Book of the “Epidemia”, when laying down the passages to be cited immediately, and declares them not to be proper names, but adjectives which all refer to insane indulgence in the pleasures of love; accordingly there can be no question here of bodily disorders, let the words in themselves signify what they will. Now if we examine into this more closely, we shall find first of all that we must obviously read στυμάργου in place of στρυμάργου, for not only is this form given by the author of the gloss (under στομάργου[9]), quoted on the preceding page, but the text also of Hippocrates[10] offers it in both passages; whereas στρυμάργου gives no sort of sense.

The word στυμάργος in fact is derived either from στῦμα[11], the act of erecting the penis, and and ἔργον (work), so signifying anyone who performs the work of causing an erection of the penis,—or else from στύω[12], I erect the penis, and μάργος[13], (mad), i. e. one who erects, uses, the penis in a madly lascivious fashion, so an Irrumator, and with this Hesychius’ interpretation agrees: λεσβιάζειν,—πρὸς ἀνδρὸς στόμα στύειν, (to lesbianize,—to erect the penis in a man’s mouth). Στομάργος on the other hand is formed by a combination of στόμα, the mouth, and ἔργω or ἔργον (I work, work), a word constantly used to express the employment of the genital organs[14], in fact indulgence in love generally, and signifies a man who performs the work (of love) with the mouth, so a Fellator[15]. Now since only the most abandoned lust, lust that has really grown into a form of insanity, is capable of undertaking such obscenities, the interpretation of Dioscorides μανικῶς ἐπτοημένον περὶ τὰ ἀφροδίσια (one that is insanely, madly, set on the pleasures of love) is quite satisfactory, assuming a hesitation on the part of the author to set forth the actual fact more explicitly, especially as we have already proved under the head of Paederastia[16] how unnatural sexual desires were commonly regarded as a Mania or form of insanity. Even if we were not in a position adequately to explain the rest of the words, yet the phrase that comes next to them καὶ ἄλλα πολλὰ κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον (and many others of the same fashion) at once shows that they bear the same signification as στύμαργος and στομάργος, or at any rate that they must all alike refer to unnatural satisfaction of the sexual impulse, for τρόπος (fashion) is the very word particularly appropriated to imply such-like practices, as we see from the expressions Κρῆτα τρόπον, Ἑλληνικὸν τρόπον[17], (Cretan fashion, Greek fashion) used to indicate paederastia.

In relation to the word μυοχάνη the readings differ greatly in the different MSS. of Galen. Franz in his edition of the Glossaries to Hippocrates gives μιοχάνης and μυοχάνης, while the Pseudo-Galen explains it under the word μυοχάνη as ἐπίθετον χασκούσης· εἰ δὲ μυριοχαύνη γράφοιτο, ἡ ἐπὶ μυρίοις ἂν εἴη χαυνουμένη (epithet applied to a woman who gapes; now if μυριοχαύνη were read, it would mean “the woman who gapes wide for ten thousand men”); besides, various readings are found here,—μηοχάνη for μυοχάνη, also μιριοχάνη, and μυιοχάνη for μυριοχαύνη. Erotian says μηριοχάνη ὄνομα γυναικὸς (Meriochané—a woman’s name). In the text of Hippocrates[18] is found Μυριοχαύνη, and the same form is given by the editions of Galen[19]. Inasmuch as χάνω and χαύνω both have the same meaning of gaping wide, that is with the mouth, it will practically make no difference which we choose as the end of the word; hence we have merely to consider the first part μου- or μυριο-, all the rest of the forms being obviously erroneous. If we read μουχάνη, we must suppose it compounded of μύος and χάνη; but inasmuch as μύος is merely a mistaken variant for μῦσος, the word must be read μυσοχάνη. Μῦσος in its turn we must derive either from μύζω, I suck,—so a woman who sucks with open mouth[20], or from μυσιάω, I snort through the nose, particularly in the act of coition, and consequently read μυσιοχάνη, i.e. a woman who with mouth open snorts through the nose, precisely what the fellatrix undoubtedly does when at her work. This emendation certainly makes better sense, and is all the more likely from the fact that μυιοχάνη and μυριοχάνη are also found as variae lectiones. Naumann would seem desirous of reading μυσάχνη (μυζάχνη), in which case it must be formed from μύζω, I suck, and ἄχνη (froth), in fact the secretion that adheres to the surface (of the glans penis)[21]. This last reading is all the more admissible, as according to Suidas[22] the word also occurs in Archilochus. Possibly however we must regard as equally correct the form μυριοχαύνη, and take it in the meaning given by the Gloss, viz. in millibus hians! (gaping in a thousand openings!), bearing in mind Lampridius’[23] expression about Heliogabalus: Quis enim ferre posset principem per cuncta cava corporis libidinem recipientem! (For who could endure a Prince that welcomed lustful pleasure by every opening of the body!)

The readings also vary as to σαράπους (turning out the feet); Franz gives ἀγράπους and ἀράπους; in the text of Hippocrates[24] on the other hand, as well in the Commentary of Galen it appears as ἡ Σεραπὶς, the latter also giving it in the genitive—τῆς Σεράπιδος. But inasmuch as the name of the goddess occurs sometimes as Σέραπις, sometimes as Σάραπις;, and as the genitive ending—πιδος easily admits of change into—πόδος, it may very likely be that after all Σαράπους stood originally in Hippocrates’text. The author of the Gloss (loco citato p. 136.) explains the word by ἡ διασεσηρότας καὶ διεστῶτας ἔχουσα τοὺς δακτύλους τῶν ποδῶν that is, a woman who has the toes drawn apart and separated. But how are we to bring this explanation into agreement with the κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον, (after the same fashion), that is to say, with one of the modes of Love that are under discussion? Think of the fellator or fellatrix, we are told, cowering down (ἐν γόνασι,—on the knees) according to Lucian’s picture (p. 229 above), and you will see the stress of the body’s weight must always fall on the front part of the foot, and to widen the point of support he is instinctively compelled to spread the toes. Well! but who can fail to see how very forced such an explanation is? still we do not in the least know how we are to deal with it further. Of course we might leave the author of the Gloss his interpretation and proceed to look about for another of our own, though we have in many cases to confess the fact that our investigations undertaken with this end in view have not exactly led to any definite results. With the reading Σεραπίς we really do not know how to deal. Perhaps the common representation, or else some particular quality, of the goddess so named gave occasion for a comparison which we now fail to understand, one that might possibly suggest an explanation of the Harpocratem reddere (to recall Harpocrates) of Catullus (69.) implying irrumare[25]. Whether the reader will take within his purview the Σεραφίμ, ἐμπρηστάς· ἔμπυρα στόματα· ἢ θερμαίνοντας (Seraphim: kindlers; fiery mouths: or, making hot) of Suidas’ Lexicon, we must leave to him; in that case Martial’s (II. 28.) calda Vetustinae nec tibi bucca placet (nor does Vetustina’s hot mouth please you) might afford an analogy. Proceeding to consider σαράπους, we find Hesychius has σαραπίους, which he explains by μαινίδας (mad-women), and Dioscorides is at one with him in regarding the vice as something done μανικῶς (madly). In Diogenes Laertius (I. 4.) we read Pittacus was called: σαράποδα καὶ σάραπον διὰ τὸ πλατύπουν εἶναι καὶ ἐπισύρειν τὼ πόδε. (turning out the feet, because of his being flat-footed and trailing his two feet). It would be hardly credible to suppose that the author of the Gloss borrowed his explanation cited just above from Diogenes Laertius or Suidas, in whom the passage occurs as well. Further, the MSS. of Diogenes give also συράπους, a word found several times in the sense of “to stand with legs apart,” and Naumann too must have understood this in our passage, for he gives as his rendering crura ambulando divaricans (straddling the legs in walking). Now leaving altogether out of the question the fact that the feminine form is found in Hippocrates, and assuming the word to be used of men, it might perfectly well signify the irrumator, who takes the fellator between his opened thighs[26], a posture that was generally regarded as obscene[27]. Indeed if we think of the fellator as sitting on the ground at his work, the word of course can be equally well used of a woman, or fellatrix.

As to γρυπαλώπηξ we read in Hippocrates (loco citato p. 629.) as follows: “Satyrus in Thasos bore the nick-name of γρυπαλώπηξ; when about twenty five he suffered from frequent nightly pollutions, and yet by day the same happened him even more constantly. When he was thirty years of age, he got consumption and died.” From this we see at once the question is of a dissolute man, who in consequence of his vicious practises had brought on such a weakness of the genitals, that he suffered from continual evacuation of seed, the result being that eventually Phthisis was set up, to which he succumbed. As variations of reading we find noted in Franz’s Gloss ῥυπαλώπηξ and τρυπαλάπηξ; Schneider in his Lexicon renders γρυπαλώπηξ by “griffin-fox”, so he must evidently have derived it from γρύψ (a griffin) and ἀλώπηξ (a fox). The Ancients depict the fox as a cunning, crafty animal and assign several characteristics as marking his behaviour that must probably be taken into consideration in the present connection,—and particularly the way he seizes and kills the hedge-hog. According to Aelian[28] he endeavours to throw the creature on its back, so that its mouth comes uppermost, and then discharges its urine into it. Now in order to signify the irrumator, the Ancients really could hardly have invented a better expression, when they, firmly convinced of course of the fact as stated, compared him to a fox. But what is a γρυπαλώπηξ? Hesychius under the word γρυπός (hooked, curved) explains it as τὰ ἔξω τοῦ στόματος καμπυλόῤῥις· ὁ ἐπικαμπῆ τὴν ῥῖνα ἔχων. (hook-nosed outside the mouth; a man having his nose bent down). Suidas again says γρυπός, ὁ καμπυλόῤῥιν (γρυπός,—a hook-nosed man); so a man with a nose bent down crooked over the mouth. Now this we might very well understand as applying to the fellator, inasmuch as his nose, when the irrumator presses down hard on him, as the sailor does to Timarchus (p. 230 above), is of necessity compressed and bent down towards the mouth; γρυπαλώπηξ would according to this be a man who, like Timarchus in Lucian, is at once an irrumator and a fellator. Of yet another word, κυναλώπηξ (fox-dog) cited by Naumann, we propose to speak under the head of the Cunnilingue, who as we shall see might likewise be signified by the expression.

Finally, as to ῥινοκολοῦρος (nose-docked), for which the MSS. also have ῥινοκλοῦρος, it is certainly the case that in Antiquity the man who practised vice with strange women (Moechus,—adulterer) had his nose cut off[29], and as Moechus equally signifies the fellator[30], the latter also may very well have been obliged to forfeit his nose. Following this hint, it would be quite legitimate to suppose the punishment to have been put for the vice, and a fellator called ῥινοκολοῦρος (nose-docked) on this ground; in the same way as the loss of the nose might be looked upon as a consequence of vice, and anyone seeing a man in this case would at once think of his dissolute past life, as indeed frequently happens at the present day amongst ourselves.

The town of Rhinocolurus,—and its history is more than problematical,—would seem to have nothing whatever to do with the question. The passages from Pliny and Livy which Naumann quotes give absolutely nothing beyond the name; and the mere existence of the name Diodorus[31] certifies, in his story of how Actisanes proceeded against the Robbers in a way of his own: “He did not wish to put the guilty to death, nor yet to leave them unpunished. So he had the accused brought up out of the whole country and inquired into each case most scrupulously; such as were found to be guilty all had their noses cut off by his orders, and were banished to the most remote spot in the Desert. The town he founded for them there received in remembrance of the punishment inflicted on its inhabitants the name of Rhinocolura. It lies on the borders of Egypt and Syria, not far from the sea-shore that borders the desert in that region, and displays an almost complete absence of all requisites for comfortable habitation. For the surrounding district possesses a soil thoroughly saturated with salt, while inside the town very little water is to be found and that positively tainted and of quite a bitter taste.” Diodorus relates further that these Colonists lived by catching quails; but of Leprosy there is no mention either here or in Strabo or Seneca, so that Naumann’s statement to the effect that it served as a dwelling-place for Lepers lacks entirely, up to the present and at any rate so far as we know, any historical foundation, though the character of the place is not against such a hypothesis. Nor is any question raised in any author as to the vicious life of the inhabitants of Rhinocolura,—in fact in later times it was actually famous for the number of its men of piety[32].

Though the explanation of ῥινοκολοῦρος given just now might very well at a pinch be regarded as satisfactory, still we think it hardly answers sufficiently well to the κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον (after the same fashion), while the variant ῥινοκλοῦρος seems to point to ῥιναύλουρος or ῥιναύλουρις as the true reading. In Tatian (Orat. ad Graecos p. 83.) in fact we read: ῥιναυλοῦσι τὰ αἰσχρά, κινοῦνται δὲ κινήσεις ἃς οὐκ ἐχρῆν, καὶ τοὺς ὄπως δεῖ μοιχεύειν ἐπὶ τῆς σκηνῆς σοφιστεύοντας αἱ θυγατέρες ὑμῶν καὶ οἱ παῖδες θεωροῦσι. (They flute their obscenities through the nose, and make movements that in decency they should not make, while actors who teach on the stage the whole art of how to debauch a woman are the spectacle your daughters and your boys gaze at.) The Scholiast observes on this ῥινοκτυποῦσιν, οἱονεὶ τὸ πνεῦμα τοῖς ῥώδωσι, συνέλκοντες ποιὸν ἦχον ἐπὶ καταγέλωτι ἀποτελοῦσι, (they make a noise with the nose, a sort of breathing with the nostrils; by drawing in these they produce a certain sound by way of mockery), and in Lucian, Lexiphanes ch. 19., we find ἔοικα δὲ καὶ ῥιναυστῆσειν, (and I am like to go nose-playing), of which the Scholiast gives the following explanation: ἀντὶ τοῦ ταῖς ῥισὶ καταυλῆσαι, ἐποίουν γὰρ τοῦτο ῥιναυλοῦντες, ἤτοι διὰ τῶν ῥινῶν ψοφοῦντες ἐπὶ διασυρμῷ τινῶν καὶ χλεύῃ. (put instead of fluting with the nostrils; for they used to do this when they nose-fluted, or in other words, made a noise with the nostrils by way of mocking people and joking). Now if we take ῥιναυλεῖν (to nose-flute) in these passages,—and all this confirms what has been previously said (above p. 144.) on the word ῥέγχειν (to snort) in the Speech of Dio Chrysostom,—for fistulam canere per nares, to play the flute with the nose, and at the same time remember that Eustathius (as was noted above, p. 236. Note 2.) derived ἀπομύζουρις and μύζουρις from μυζᾶν-οὐράν (οὐρά,—the tail, the penis), the Greeks would seem to have said ῥιναυλεῖν-οὐράν, penem pro fistula canere, (to play on the penis instead of a flute), and we should have the adjective or substantive ῥιναύλουρις, qui penem pro fistula canit per nares, (one who plays on the penis instead of a flute with the nostrils), which admirably expresses not only the action of the fellator, but also the music he makes to accompany it, as he is compelled to snort, drawing his breath heavily through the nose.

Which explanation the reader will choose, we must really leave to him, for interpretations of words of this sort can never be brought to the absolute test of evidence, inasmuch as nick-names as a rule take their origin only too often in external circumstances. Still this much we think we may pronounce with certainty, that the words of the Gloss have to do simply de rebus venereis, with matters of love, and not with Venereal complaints, and thus Naumann’s propositions[33] at least are devoid of foundation. Perhaps it may be possible by means of a comparison of the licentious representations on old Vases, of which the late Hofrath Böttiger would seem to have possessed a choice collection, and some examples of which are preserved also at Berlin, in connection with one or other of the words given in the Gloss, as generally with the embodiments in Art of the Venus ebria (drunken Venus), to afford a better explanation, one that may indeed be of no particular value to the student of Antiquity pure and simple, but nevertheless is indispensable to the Physician for the correct understanding of sundry diseases of the Ancients, or at any rate one sufficient to avoid incorrect assertions and false conclusions, and to refute such.

We are not in a position to give a systematic history of the spread of the vice of the fellator and irrumator; but at any rate this much is certain that in Imperial times the Vice was most widely indulged in, as the Epigrams of Martial, and what Suetonius relates in his Life of Tiberius (chs. 44, 45.) sufficiently bear witness.

[Diseases of the Fellator.]
§ 22.

Now to pass on to the medical point of view, no one presumably will deny that the mouth of the fellator must necessarily be exposed to various complaints as a consequence of his Vice. Nevertheless there prevails universally, so far as our studies up to the present have enabled us to judge, complete silence among the Physicians of Antiquity as to the practice of λεσβιάζειν (to Lesbianize, to practise fellation) as a cause occasioning morbid affections of the mouth and the contiguous parts. This is the more surprising, as we find that non-professional Writers are not entirely unacquainted with such effects, as we shall show directly. For our purpose this silence is doubly unfortunate, depriving us as it does of all means of submitting such affections of the mouth as are described by Physicians to any proper appreciation in regard to their ætiological relationships,—an appreciation that in any case must naturally have been in view of our knowledge of the vice of the fellator one of extreme difficulty. The difficulty is this: fellator and fellatrix, equally with the Cunnilingue, the fornicater and fornicatrix, were liable to suffer from ulcers of the throat, for example, as a result of their peculiar vice, but in the former case these ulcers were primary, in the latter secondary,—now how is an inquirer to discover any diagnostic sign here, whereby to distinguish the one class from the other? Yet all the while, certainty on this point is of the very highest importance in view of the question as to the existence of Venereal disease in Antiquity, the chief argument always alleged against accepting the fact of such existence being the absence of secondary symptoms such as are nowadays commonly met with, especially about the throat[34].

It is remarkable that not one, so far as we know, of the authors who have studied the history of Venereal Disease makes any mention of this circumstance; neither do the Pathologists ever bring forward the vice of the fellator as an ætiological factor. Clossius[35] it is true speaks of Irrumatio, relying on Perenotti di Cigliano and Fabre; but these last are really speaking of the Cunnilingue, not of the fellator. Probably they are of Erasmus’opinion: λείχαζειν ni fallor tale quiddam est Graecis, quale fellare Latinis. Nam vox etiamnum manet, tametsi rem iam olim e medio sublatam arbritor. (λειχάζειν—to practise licking,—if I am not mistaken, is a similar practice with the Greeks to that of fellation with the Romans. The word indeed still remains, but the thing I believe to have long since entirely disappeared). On this however Forberg (loco citato p. 304.) very justly adds: Vereor ut vere: certe audio, ne ab nunc hominum quidem moribus plane abhorrere id schematis, quid viderint ii, quibus magnas urbes adire licet. (I fear this is not true: at any rate I am told this sort of practice is not entirely repugnant to the habits of some men even of our own day, to judge by what those see who have the opportunity of visiting large cities). How many primary ulcers of the throat, especially in the case of common Prostitutes, may have been mistaken for secondary ones, and have been treated accordingly, in fact are treated so still, without the Physician having a suspicion of how they were actually incurred! But what the Physicians of our own times are ignorant of, though familiar enough to many of the Laity, this knowledge we cannot reasonably demand from the Physicians of Antiquity. Yet supposing they did actually possess this knowledge, it was very excusable if they looked at what lay nearest before their eyes and regarded all throat ulcers as being primary,—in just the same way as any Practitioner of to-day finds it excusable in a Colleague that he thinks only of secondary ulcers, inasmuch as what in Ancient times happened very commonly is practised at the present day at any rate much less frequently. Consequently the absence of mention on the part of the old Physicians of secondary ulcers of the throat in connection with complaints of the genital organs cannot be considered as any sort of proof of their non-existence.

Among the maladies to which the fellator was exposed, we have in the first place to reckon the foul smell from the mouth[36], which is mentioned as especially prevalent among the Romans. The Physicians as a rule derived it, if no local symptoms, of ulcers, etc., were apparent, from some fault of the stomach[37],—an instance surely where the Laity were cleverer than the Profession! The sympathy between the mouth and the genitals and anus makes it evident why at the present day we notice, particularly in immoral women, an evil smell from the mouth, which they endeavour to conceal by chewing burned coffee and the like. No doubt this was the case in Antiquity[38] as well, so we are by no means justified in attributing every instance of foul breath in harlots and cinaedi to the practice of fellation.

Yet another consequence of fellation was pain in the mouth (στομαλγία, mouth-ache; only we must remember as to this that Pollux, Onomast. III. 7. 69., cites ἀλγεῖν,—to suffer pain, as a synonym of to love), tongue-ache (γλωσσαλγία[39]) and toothache[40], and generally pains of the palate and throat, rendering voice and speech indistinct. Hence Martial says[41]:

Qui recitat lana fauces et colla revinctus,

Hic se posse loqui, posse tacere negat.

(The man who reads aloud his works, his throat and neck bound about with wool, declares he cannot speak, yet cannot hold his tongue).

But the evil by no means stopped here; there more often occurred as the result of the habit of fellation acute no less than chronic inflammations of the palate (sore throats, quinseys). In the passage quoted a little above from Lucian’s Pseudologistae, it is said of Timarchus: “In Egypt on the other hand they called you συνάγχη (sore throat),—as everybody knows.” In explanation Lucian adds: “It must have been a close thing with you not to be choked, that time you came across the sailor of a three-master, who fell upon you and stopped your mouth for you.” Without in any way detracting from the importance of what we are told here, it still appears to us, on full consideration, that Timarchus was not merely a fellator, but an irrumator as well, and this is the more probable as he no doubt acquired this nickname, because he, bene vasatus (well provided with a big member), frequently brought on sore throat, that is to say in those who served him as fellators!

Moreover this reveals to us the real meaning of a passage of Aretaeus, one that has often been quoted before as connected with Venereal disease. This occurs in the 9th Chapter of the Book[42], which would certainly seem to admit only of a direct application; still we are convinced that much of the pathological description of sore throat (Ch. 7.) and many symptoms of the complaints of the uvula (Ch. 8.) owe their origin to fellation. Undoubtedly we have nowadays much fewer occasions to note affections of the uvula, which were of very common occurrence among the Ancients[43], as is shown by their own accounts,—a circumstance hardly to be wondered at if we consider the particulars told us about Timarchus. Aretaeus in Ch. 9. makes a distinction between κίων (pillar, uvula) or columella (little pillar, uvula), when the whole uvula is inflamed and swollen, σταφυλὴ or uva (bunch of grapes), when only the lower part is affected, and ἰμάντιον (little strap), when the palatal membrane is attacked. “Κίων”, he goes on, “occurs most frequently with old men, σταφυλὴ with young men and such as are in the prime of life, affection of the palatal membranes (τὰ ὑμενώδεα) in those who are at the age of puberty and in boys.” The ninth Chapter runs as follows:

Of Ulcers of the Throat.

Ulcers arising in the throat of a benignant and harmless nature are common, the malignant and dangerous rare. Benignant ulcers of the sort are clean, of slight extent and superficial, neither inflamed nor painful. The malignant on the contrary are broad, hollow, lardaceous, with a white, livid, or black covering. These ulcers are known as aphthae. But if the covering is very tough, then the malady is an eschar, and is so called. At the edge of the eschar are set up an intense redness, inflammation and a congested state of the veins, as in anthrax (carbuncle, malignant pustule), while small, distinct and unconnected, elevations of the mucous membrane appear, which are continually uniting with fresh ones that successively follow, and so an extensive ulcer is established. If this extends from the outer mouth too far inwards, in fact once it has attacked the uvula and relaxed it, the disease spreads over the tongue, gums and lips, while the teeth become loose and blackened. Further the inflammation attacks the throat. Patients so affected die in a few days after the inflammation and fever are set up, of the evil odour and of hunger; the ulcer propagates itself by way of the wind-pipe to the chest, so that very likely suffocation supervenes the same day. For lungs and heart can tolerate neither so foul an odour nor the ulcers themselves nor the ichor (puriform, septic matter) coming from them, but cough and difficulty of breathing supervene. Origin of this affection of the throat is the swallowing of cold, pungent, hot, sour, or strongly astringent, substances. Now these parts serve the chest on behalf of the voice and the breathing, as also the abdomen for sifting the nutriment, and the stomach for swallowing food. But when these inward parts, viz. abdomen, stomach and chest, are attacked by a disease, the disease is in turn conveyed and carried to the œsophagus, the tonsils and neighbouring regions.

Children up to the age of puberty suffer most in this way, for children have the very greatest and most marked desire for coolness, because with them the natural heat is at its greatest; the longing for foods of various sorts and cold beverages is boundless; while they shout loudly both in quarrel and at play. This is equally true of girls up to the commencement of menstruation.

With regard to locality, Egypt gives most numerous examples of the disease, for this country has at once a dry air to breathe, and many sorts of comestibles,—roots, herbs, garden vegetables, pungent seeds; while the drink is either thick, being Nile water, or artificially made pungent with barley or with grape-skins. In Syria the disease is also found, especially in Coelesyria. For this reason the ulcers in question are known as Egyptian or Syrian ulcers.

The mode and fashion in which death occurs in these cases is deplorable. The pain is a cutting and burning pain, as in anthrax (carbuncle, malignant pustule), the breath foul-smelling, the patient exhaling an intensely offensive breath, and re-inhaling into the chest another no less so. Patients are so loathsome to themselves they cannot tolerate their own smell; the face is pale or livid, the temperature excessively high, the thirst as distressing as in fever. Yet they reject drink when offered from dread of the pain of swallowing; for they undergo great agony both by the compression of the palate and by the return of the liquid through the nose. No sooner have they lain down than they spring up again; then finding they cannot bear an upright posture, no sooner have they sat down than they are forced by their agony to lie back once more. Most commonly they move about in an upright attitude. For as they are unable to sleep, they avoid all rest, as though they were fain to drive away one torture with another. Inhalation is deep, for they long for fresh air to cool themselves; exhalation on the contrary short and hurried, for the ulcers already burning like fire are heated yet further by contact of the feverish breath as it streams out. Hoarseness comes on, and loss of voice, and this goes on continuously increasing, until suddenly coming to the end of their resistance they give up the ghost.”

---

In the portion of the work devoted to Therapeutics (Bk. I. ch. 9.), which bears the title: Θεραπεία τῶν κατὰ τὴν φαρύγγα λοιμικῶν παθῶν, (Pestilential Affections of the Throat Regions, their Curative Treatment), caustics are especially recommended, as the actual cautery cannot be employed, and finally we read: “In some cases the uvula is destroyed right back to the bones of the palate, and the throat to the root of the tongue and the epiglottis, and in consequence of this destruction they can get down neither solid food nor liquid, for liquids return through the nose, and so the patient dies of hunger.”

---

Now if we examine these statements more closely, we cannot first of all help wondering how the ætiological factors named by Aretaeus could possibly be regarded by him as sufficient to account for such dangerous ulcerations,—ulcerations which he himself even calls λοιμώδεα (of pestilential character), though of course they are perfectly adequate to explain simple ulcers of the throat. Indulgence in pungent comestibles and beverages is as little adequate to cause such symptoms as are the shouting and greediness of children, not to mention the fact that these are in no way peculiar to Egypt or Syria. The whole account shows us clearly that while Aretaeus was well acquainted with the forms the disease took, the ætiological factors were obscure to him and it was merely in a spirit of ill-timed speculation he subjoined them, proving once more how right Appuleius was when he exclaims: Dii boni! Quam facilis, licet non artifici medico, cuivis tamen docto Venereae cupidinis comprehensio. (Great gods! how easy it is for any educated man, always excepting a medical practitioner, to understand the passion of love).

We have already more than once in the course of these investigations proved how Egypt and Syria must be regarded as the nursery of licentiousness in Antiquity, and the passage quoted from Lucian (above p. 229.) directly establishes the fact for us; again, a little further on (p. 240. Note I.) it was mentioned how boys particularly, (but also young girls), were used and specially trained as fellators. Hence Martial[44] wishes he had a boy,

Niliacis primum puer is nascatur in oris:

Nequitias tellus scit dare nulla magis.

(In the first place my boy must be born on the banks of Nile: no other land can produce more finished wickedness). From all this, as well as from a comparison of the passage in Lucian, we believe we are amply justified in concluding that Aretaeus’ulcers of the throat, these Αἰγύπτια καὶ Συριακὰ ἕλκεα (Egyptian and Syrian sores) were not unfrequently a consequence of fellation[45]. That this should be so is readily intelligible, when we consider the liability to corruption and the acrid quality of secretions from the glans penis in hot countries. Again the βουβαστικὰ ἕλκεα (Bubastic sores), which Salmasius cites from Aëtius[46] as being identical with the Egyptian and Syrian ulcers, find a satisfactory explanation on this hypothesis, for Herodotus[47] tells us in his time of the licentious worship of Bubastis, daughter of Isis, at Bubastos. In this expression (βουβαστικὰ ἕλκεα) the malady is named from one particular place, where it was probably specially prevalent, whereas in Aretaeus it is spoken of as general throughout the country.

In this connection we must not pass over the fact that Casaubon commenting on the passage of Persius (V. 187.) to be quoted directly is inclined to regard the ἕλκεα Συριακὰ (Syrian sores) as a punishment of the Dea Syra (Syrian goddess). In this he relies on a passage of Plutarch[48] that runs to this effect: “But of the Syrian goddess the superstitious believe that, if a man eat a sprat or anchovy, the goddess consumes his shin-bones, fills his body full of sores, melts down his liver.” The legend must at any rate be of great antiquity, for we meet with it in Menander, in a fragment which Porphyrius[49] has preserved,—in which however swelling of the belly and the feet is in question. To this also would seem to refer what Persius (loco citato) says:

Hinc grandes Galli et cum sistro lusca sacerdos,

Incussere Deos inflantes corpora, si non

Praedictum ter mane caput gustaveris alli.

(Then the tall Galli, and the one-eyed priestess with her sacred rattle, instil terror of the gods that make men’s bodies swell, unless three times at dawn you have eaten the prescribed head of garlic). True we cannot from the passage of Plutarch directly conclude that ulcers of the throat also were ascribed to the anger of the Syrian goddess in consequence of indulgence in a fish diet; rather should we expect what is said to apply primarily to external skin-ulcers, occurring on other parts, as just on the shin-bone. Still we shall be quite justified in making the reference general, more particularly as liver-complaint is also ascribed to the goddess’s interference, and we shall see that in Antiquity the cause of all ulcers was supposed to lie in some fault of the liver. Now as the fish had necessarily to be put into the mouth to be swallowed, and as it was always supposed the punishment of the goddess followed immediately on the offence, and affected the immediately active part, throat-ulcers might very naturally be taken to be a result of such punishment. This again only further confirms our explanation just above to the effect that ulcers of the throat were a consequence resulting from vicious indulgence. For the Temple-service of the Dea Syra was of course connected with every sort of licentious practice.

Taking into consideration this marked prevalence of Corrosion of the Shin-bones, we might argue with considerable probability that it pointed to the existence of a disease of the bones following as a result of vicious indulgence. On the other hand the observation that the precise time the body became covered with ulceration was after indulgence in fish-eating cannot help being of weight in connection with the doctrine of Leprosy; for to the present day we note as very frequent among peoples whose chief nutriment is fish various forms of Leprosy. And again, we may very likely see in this prohibition of a fish diet, which is also mentioned by Athenaeus[50], a sanitary regulation justified by experience as necessary in Syria, where skin-diseases and ulcerations were so common.

But not alone in Egypt and Syria did fellation lead to suchlike unhappy results; we find the same to have been the case at Rome, as is proved by the following passage of Martial[51], a passage that has hitherto been completely overlooked in this connection, but which is none the less of great importance:

Indignas premeret pestis cum tabida fauces

Inque ipsos vultus serperet atra lues:

Siccis ipse genis flentes hortatus amicos

Decrevit Stygios Festus adire lacus.

Nec tamen obscuro pia polluit ora veneno,

Aut torsit lenta tristia fata fame:

Sanctam Romana vitam sed morte peregit,

Dimisitque animam nobiliore via.

Hanc mortem fatis magni praeferre Catonis

Fama potest: huius Caesar amicus erat.

(When corrupting disease began to sorely afflict his unworthy throat and black contagion was creeping to his very face, Festus, himself with dry cheeks, comforted his weeping friends, and determined to seek the pools of Styx. But still he never disgraced his dutiful lips with darkling poison, nor brought on a painful, miserable end by slow hunger; nay! rather by a Roman death he completed his holy life, and dismissed his soul the nobler way. Such a death fame may well exalt above great Cato’s end; Caesar was his friend).

The words indignae fauces (unworthy throat) obviously point to the practice of fellation, whereby he had brought on himself the pestis tabida and atra lues, (corrupting disease, black contagion), and so we have here a clear statement of the cause by one doctus venereae cupidinis (learned in the passion of love), which cause was quite unknown to the artifex medicus (medical practitioner). The pia ora (dutiful lips) are therefore to be taken merely ironically, as also the sancta vita (holy life). Even the Cinaedus, as well as the maidens who prostitute themselves in honour of Astarté, are invariably, as we have seen, described in the Old Testament as sanctus (holy), and we read e. g. in Job. Ch. XXXV. 14., of a good-for-nothing, how he will die like such a sanctus. It was precisely this signification of sanctus that led us to the idea of taking the throat affection for a secondary consequence of paederastia, especially if we understand a double entendre to underlie the last words huius Caesar amicus erat (Caesar was his friend). The Commentators it is true take them merely as said by way of contrast with the death of Cato of Utica, who was forced by Caesar’s enmity to take his own life, and as implying this was not the case with Festus, consequently that his suicide is so much the more remarkable[52]. However it is doubtful which Caesar is meant, whether the word is merely a Title or a proper name. In the second—and certainly this at first appeared to us to be the more likely,—view we were of course bound then to turn our attention to his character for dissoluteness. However as both Catullus[53] and Suetonius[54] represent him merely as a Cinaedus in regard to the male sex, if that is to say we subscribe to the accepted opinion, we afterwards came to the conclusion it was rather the Emperor generally that is spoken of here, and consequently that any other Emperor, e. g. Tiberius, or Nero, or another, might be intended. It is true that if pathicus (pathic) and omnium virorum mulier (wife of all men) are taken in a wider sense, there would be nothing to make the supposition impossible that Julius Caesar is pointed at. Only that perhaps another passage of Martial would seem to go against this, a passage where he seeks to excuse the several excesses and vices of a certain Gaurus by instancing an exalted personage as patronizing each of them, and says finally (Bk. II. 89.):

Quod fellas; vitium dic mihi cuius habes?

(But for your fellation: tell me whose vice you follow in this?) Still against the cinaedus view the words indignae fauces (unworthy throat) speak clearly. Probably in this connection the following passage of Martial should also come in,—where the Poet says of his servant (Bk. I. Epigr. 102.):

Destituit primos virides Demetrius annos:

Quarta tribus lustris addita messis erat.

Ne tamen ad Stygias famulus descenderet umbras,

Ureret implicitum cum scelerata lues,

Cavimus et domini ius omne remisimus aegro:

Munere dignus erat convaluisse meo.

Sensit deficiens sua praemia, meque patronum

Dixit, ad infernas liber iturus aquas.

(Demetrius left us in the first years of his bloom; the fourth summer was but just added to his three lustres. We took all means to save our faithful house-slave from descending to the shades of Styx, when he was consuming under a malignant contagion that had fastened upon him, and remitted all my master’s rights for the sick lad,—who indeed well deserved to win recovery at my hands. On his death-bed he recognized what I had done for him, and called me his master, though so soon to go forth a free man to the streams of the nether world.)

Was this famulus (house-slave) the same person as the puer (boy, slave), who is mentioned by Martial, bk. XI. 95.?

That not boys only, but girls too, had to suffer in this way among the Romans, and lost their lives from the complaint in question, is shown, we think, by the following Epigram of Martial, Bk. XI. Epigr. 91.:

Aeolidon Canace iacet hoc tumulata sepulchro,

Ultima cui parvae septima venit hiems.

Ah scelus, ah facinus! properas quid flere viator?

Non licet hic vitae de brevitate queri.

Tristius est leto leti genus: horrida vultus

Abstulit et tenero sedit in ore lues:

Ipsaque crudeles ederunt oscula morbi;

Nec data sunt nigris tota labella rogis.

Si tam praecipiti fuerant ventura volatu,

Debuerant alia fata venire via.

(Canacé of the Aeolians lies buried in this tomb, who died a child,—her seventh winter was her last. Oh! the shame and horror of it! haste, a tear, thou that passest by. Here is no occasion to lament the short span of human life. Sadder than death is the way of her death; a dread contagion ate away her face, and settled in the tender little mouth. Cruel disease infected her very kisses; and her lips were half gone when they were consigned to the grim pyre. If death must needs have come to her with a flight so swift, at least he should have taken another way. Death so hasted to close the issue of her persuasive voice, that her tongue might not have time to bend the cruel goddesses to mercy).

Besides the passages quoted, there are several others to be found in Martial, that must be taken as referring to the fellator; but since the maladies that occur are equally prevalent in the case of the Cunnilingue, it will be more convenient to adduce them under that head. Further, we only require to mention the fact that pale lips seem to have been regarded as a mark of the fellator[55].

The Cunnilingue.
§ 23.

But the vice of the fellator is far surpassed in baseness by that of the Cunnilingue (qui opus peragit linguam arrigendo in cunnum, eumque lambit,—one who works by putting his tongue up into the female organ, and licking it). The Greeks called this practice σκύλαξ (a puppy), because it is a habit of dogs[56], and Hesychius explains it by σχῆμα ἀφροδισιακὸν, ὡς τὸ τῶν φοινικιζόντων (a method of love, resembling that of those who phoenicize). We have already, in the passage of Lucian quoted a little above, found φοινικίζειν and λεσβιάζειν put side by side; Galen moreover[57] does the same in the following passage, a noteworthy one for our purpose on several accounts: “The drinking of sweat, urine and the menstrual blood of women is vicious and shameful, and not less so when a person, as Xenocrates proposes to do, smears the regions of the mouth and throat with excrement, and swallows it down. He speaks also of taking the wax of the ears. For my part I could never bring myself to take this, even though by that means I were never to be ill again. But excrement I consider yet more disgusting, and it is for a man of any decency far more shameful to be called an Excrement-Eater[58] than an αἰσχρουργὸς (worker of obscenities) or a cinaedus. But of αἰσχρουργοὶ[59] (workers of obscenities), we abominate Phoenicians more than the Lesbians, and it seems to me the man does something of the same sort as the former who drinks menstrual blood (μᾶλλον βδελλυττόμεθα τοὺς φοινικίζοντας τῶν λεσβιαζόντων ᾧ[60] φαίνεταί μοι παραπλήσιόν τι πάσχειν ὁ καὶ καταμηνίου πίνων.) A sensible man will neither seek to collect experiences on the point, nor yet on a practice, which it is true involves less, but still is sufficiently shameful, that of smearing a part of the body with excrement, because he has some hurt at that spot,—or with human seed. Xenocrates calls this latter commonly γόνος (seed, semen), and distinguishes with minute care between cases where simple seed rubbed in by itself is of benefit, and cases where the female has the same effect after combination with the male, as it is discharged from the woman’s womb.”

This explanation of Galen’s to the effect that the φοινικίζων (one who phoenicizes) resembles the man who drinks menstrual blood, shows clearly that φοινικίζειν is not, as all the Lexicons give it, and Forbiger (loco citato) also assumes, identical with λεσβιάζειν. It is true Forbiger (p. 329. Note v.) gives the meaning cunnilingere as well, although the explanation is undoubtedly unsatisfactory which he offers à propos of an Epigram,[61]—one certainly apposite in this connection, to the effect that the reason for this signification is, quod cunnilingos a natando in mari quodam Phoenicei coloris (mari rubro) dixissent, (that they had called them cunnilingues from their swimming as it were in a sea of Phoenician purple colour—a red sea); for the words in the Epigram, ἐν φοινίκῃ δὲ καθεύδεις (but you sleep in Phoenicia) cannot stand for anything else but simply φοινικίζειν, as indeed the passage from Aloisia Sigaea, which is quoted by Forbiger himself, proves conclusively[62]: Cum vellet mediam lambere, se velle dicebat in Liguriam, (When he wanted to lick my middle, he used to say he would fain be into Liguria—that is, would fain lick, ligurire). Accordingly just as λεσβιάζειν came into use as the distinctive name for the vice of the fellator, because it was practised to a distinctive degree in Lesbos, so too to be a cunnilingue was called φοινικίζειν, because the habit was at home among the Phoenicians. Undoubtedly men’s shamelessness was carried so far that they actually used women and girls at their period of menstruation for this purpose,—a fact of the highest interest for us, as we shall show directly. Seneca[63] expresses himself plainly enough on the subject: “Quid tu, cum Mamercum Scaurum consulem faceres, ingnorabas, ancillarum suarum menstruum ore illum hiante exceptare? num quid enim ipse dissimulabat? num quid purus videri volebat?” (How came it you were ignorant, when making Mamercus Scaurus consul, that he was in the habit of catching in his open mouth the menstrual discharge of his maidservants? Did he make any concealment of it himself? did he pose as a pure-minded man? nay! not he). Again in another place[64]:

“Nuper Natalis tam improbae linguae quam impurae, in cuius ore feminae purgabantur.” (Quite lately Natalis showed himself as malignant of tongue as he is unchaste, into whose mouth women were used to purge themselves).

Now if first of all we bear steadfastly in mind that this φοινικίζειν was a vice, which prevailed primarily and especially among the Phoenicians and was later on disseminated abroad by them, and then consider how the Greeks designated every vice, and particularly excesses in love, as νόσος (disease), in the same way precisely as the Romans used morbus (disease),—comp. § 17—we must see that φοινικίζειν is the same thing as νόσος φοινικίη (Phoenician disease), and shall be in a position to form an opinion on the Gloss[65] falsely ascribed to Galen, which reads: φοινικίη νόσος· ἡ κατὰ Φοινίκην καὶ κατὰ τὰ ἄλλα ἀνατολικὰ μέρη πλεονάζουσα. δηλοῦσθαι δὲ κἀνταῦθα δοκεῖ ἡ ἐλεφαντιάσις. (Phoenician disease: a disease prevalent in Phoenicia and about the Eastern parts. Elephantiasis appears to be signified by this).

Even granting the first part of this Gloss to have been really written by Galen, the last sentence at any rate is obviously an extraneous and later addition. This is at once indicated by the use of the word δοκεῖ (it appears), which comes in curiously, standing as it does next-door to the definite statement that this νόσος (disease) was common in Phoenicia; for surely anyone who knew this, must also have known what the disease was. Again if he had wished to describe it by some such phrase as the English “a sort of Elephantiasis”, he could hardly have failed to express himself in a different way to what he has. But as a matter of fact, Galen knew perfectly well, as we have already seen, what φοινικίζειν was, and consequently what the φοινικίη νόσος (Phoenician disease) was, and it could not by any possibility have occurred to him to suppose it any form of Elephantiasis. Unfortunately Prof. Naumann[66] has allowed himself to be misled by this extraneous addition; he writes: “In the Work of a Pseudo-Galen is given a short explanation of the φοινικίη νόσος (Phoenician disease), or rather to speak strictly, the conjecture is made,[67] that this malady, a common one in Phoenicia and the East, may have been Elephantiasis.” True indeed the word might with equal likelihood express a disease characterized by redness of the skin φοινίκιος s. φοινίκεος i. q. puniceus, purpureus, cruentus; φοινιγμὸς irritatio cutis per vesicantia—φοινίκιος or φοινίκεος = Phoenician purple, purple, blood-red; φοινιγμὸς = irritation of the skin by rubefacients). Or should we suppose some leprous-venereal malady endemic and aboriginal among the trading Phoenicians to be signified, which was called the Morbus Phoeniceus (Phoenician disease) in the same way as in more modern times people spoke of the Morbus Gallicus (French disease,—Syphilis)? In any case it is remarkable that Themison (who also noted incidentally that Satyriasis at times attacks a population epidemically,—speaks of the special frequency of Satyriasis in Crete (Caelius Aurelianus, Acut. Morb. bk. III. ch. 18). As is well known, Phoenician and Hellenic Colonies had converged here; and the island remained in uninterrupted and active commercial intercourse with the maritime cities of Phoenicia.

According to the general supposition the Gloss of the Pseudo-Galen has reference to a passage of Hippocrates occurring in the Second book of the Prorrhetica,[68] where we read as follows: “But λειχῆνες—tetters, as also λέπραι and λεῦκαι,—scaly leprosies and white leprosies, where any of these occur in the young or mere children, or after appearing on a small scale shall then increase but slowly, in these cases it is not right to call the exanthema or eruption an apostasis, (transitional state), but a νόσημα,—condition of disease. On the other hand where any of these affections occurs on a large scale and suddenly, it would then be an apostasis. But whereas λεῦκαι arise out of the most deadly diseases, as e. g. the νοῦσος ἡ φθινικὴ,—wasting disease, as it is called, λέπραι and λειχῆνες do so from the melancholic, or diseases proceeding from black bile. And of such the easier to cure are those that occur in the youngest patients and are of the latest origin, and arise in the softest and most fleshy parts of the body.” Foesius observes on the passage: “Nemini autem dubium est, quin hac parte mendosi sint codices omnes, cum ἡ νοῦσος ἡ φθινικὴ καλουμένη scribitur. Nam φοινικίη νόσος ex Galeni exegesi procul omni dubio reponendum.” (Now no one can doubt that all the MSS. are deceptive here, reading as they do ἡ νοῦσος ἡ φθινική. For φοινικίη vόσος must undoubtedly be restored from the Exegesis of Galen). J. W. Wedel[69] on the contrary writes: “Legunt quidam pro φοινικίη—φθινικὴ, et vertunt tabem seu morbum tabidum, sed contra fidem codicum correctiorum, quibus Galenus ipse assentitur, et rei ipsius, de qua textus agit, evidentiam.” (Some read φθινικὴ for φοινικίη, and render it wasting or wasting disease,—but against the authority of the better class of MSS., with which Galen himself agrees, and against the evidence of the context of the matter treated of). In the latter of these two statements Wedel, in spite of his mistaken view of the matter generally, is perfectly right; whether he is so in the former as well, we are not in a position to say, for alas! we lack the critical apparatus absolutely indispensable for such a decision, not so much as the Edition of Mackius being on the shelves of our University Library.

In the first place we ought to make quite sure what Hippocrates understood under the name λεῦκαι. A disease of the Skin no doubt; but of what particular nature it was, would seem not to be so easy to determine. According to Coac. praenotion. (Vol. I. p. 321.) Hippocrates distinguished a λεύκη συγγενής and a λεύκη μὴ συγγενής (λεύκη inborn, and not inborn), the latter attacking individuals only after puberty. Hesychius says λεύκη, ἄνθος τι τῶν περὶ τὸ σῶμα γινόμενον, ἄλφος δὲ λευκή τις ἐν τῷ σώματι. (λεύκη—white leprosy, an eruption coming out on the exterior parts of the body, but ἄλφος—dull-white leprosy, a form of λεύκη in the body). Galen, Definit. med. (Vol. XIX. p. 140) λευκή ἐστιν ἡ ἐπὶ λευκὸν χρῶμα τοῦ σώματος παρὰ φύσιν μεταβολή. (λεύκη is the change to an unnatural white colour of the body). According to this it would appear to be merely superficial discolorations of the skin that writers understood by λεῦκαι,—a view that Rayer[70] seems to coincide with. Pollux on the other hand offers an explanation as follows: ἀλφὸς μέλας, ἐπιδρομὴ σκιώδης, ἐπιπόλαιος, εὐίατος, ἀλφὸς λευκὸς, λευκότης ἐπιτρέχουσα τῇ ἐπιδερματίδι, αὐχμηρὰ, δυσίατος· λεύκη, ὅταν ἐπιτείνῃ ἡ λευκότης, καὶ φύσῃ τρίχωσιν λευκήν, εἰ δὲ κεντήσειας, ὕφαιμος, δυσίατος, ἐστιν ὅτε ὑπέρυθρος· ἐπανθεῖ δὲ αὐτὸ (?) τοῖς χείλεσιν, οἷον ἁλὸς ἄχνη. (Black ἀλφός, a dark-coloured spreading eruption, superficial and easily curable; white alphos, a whiteness running over the epidermis (of the prepuce), dry harsh and difficult to cure; λεύκη, when the whiteness extends, and produces a growth of white hairs, and if you prick it, it is suffused with blood, difficult to cure, also sometimes reddish in hue. And the eruption comes out on the lips like sea-foam). Here λεύκη is evidently a much more deeply penetrating malady, as indeed it is described by Celsus[71] and Galen.[72] It corresponds with the white Leprosy of Moses. But the most curious thing is the statement appended to the effect that the affection broke out on the lips like sea-foam. This is certainly to be referred to some other form of λεύκη, unless indeed we are to take it in connection with the succeeding words in the text, λειχὴν ἄγριος (malignant tetter), in which case, as we have seen with regard to Mentagra (Tetter of the chin), the remark is based on a perfectly sound observation; and besides, the αὐτὸ gives absolutely no sense. On the other hand if Pollux’datum in reference to the seat of λεύκη is correct, it must obviously afford much light for clearing up the meaning of the passage in Hippocrates, and in deference to it we shall be bound to read φοινικίη instead of φθινικὴ,[73]—an emendation that presents no difficulty, since φθινικὴ might very easily be read for φοινικίη, and indeed (as pointed out in the Note) was actually so read.

But one emendation leads on to another, and we shall find ourselves bound, on the analogy of the θαυμαστὸν πάθος (wonderful complaint) in Dio Chrysostom, to read here also θαυμαστωτάτων νοσημάτων (of the most wonderful diseases) for θανατωδεστάτων ν., and translate accordingly: “but λεῦκαι arise out of the most terrible aberrations of the mind,” such for instance as the vice of the cunnilingue is. If we examine further, we shall see it is not λευκαὶ but λεῦκαι that stands in the text, so it cannot be a question of a skin-affection of the leprosy type at all, for λευκὸς (white) rather implies transparent and shiny, and Martial (XI. 99.) in a passage to be discussed more fully later on, says:

Non ulcus acre, pustulaeve lucentes,

Nec triste mentum, sordidique lichenes,

(No biting ulcer, or shiny pustules, nor yet disfigured chin, and foul scabs). Accordingly we have here nothing whatever to do with the leprous-like λευκὴ, but only with pustulae lucentes (shiny pustules), which as we shall show presently were a consequence of the practices of the cunnilinigue. We have the more right to assume this, as the old Physicians ascribe λευκὴ to the φλέγμα (phlegmatic humour),—an explanation all the more likely to have been given, as directly afterwards follow the words, αἱ δὲ λέπραι καὶ οἱ λειχῆνες ἐκ τῶν μελαγχολικῶν (but leprosies and tetters arise out of the melancholic diseases). True this is in contradiction with another passage of Hippocrates,[74] for in this we read: λέπρη καὶ κνησμὸς καὶ ψώρη καὶ λειχῆνες καὶ ἀλφὸς καὶ ἀλώπεκες ὑπὸ φλέγματος γίνονται. (leprosy, and itch, and scab, and tetters, and dull-white leprosy, and manges, arise from phlegm). This much at any rate appears to us to result, viz. that the whole passage under discussion cannot possibly be by Hippocrates, but much more probably is due to some author of the Alexandrine age, who enjoyed ample opportunities for studying the consequences of the unnatural excesses as so often observed since Pompey the Great’s time.

To assume that Hippocrates was actually acquainted with these in any completeness would up to the present be premature; at any rate we are bound, so far as our study of his writings enables us to judge, to deny him any knowledge of the fact that sexual excesses were the cause of the different affections of the genital organs chronicled by him. Of course he may have supposed all this to be notorious and the knowledge of it common property, but a host of statements would be found to tell against any such supposition. Opportunities of making acquaintance with the vice of the cunnilingue could certainly not have been lacking, it being so familiar a thing in his time that Aristophanes[75] again and again derided it in his Comedies. Whatever conclusion we come to on this head, at least the passage of Hippocrates cannot justify anyone in maintaining that the φοινικίη νοῦσος,—(Phœnician disease) was true Elephantiasis, even if, as may be, the preliminary proposition that elephantiasis was a consequence of debauchery be made good,—a point to which we propose later on to return. On the subject of Satyriasis in Crete, we have already expressed our views.

Just as the Phoenicians carried the seed of the vice to Greece and other lands, so at a later period was it disseminated from Syria to Italy; and so Ausonius says (Epigr. 128.):

Eunus Syriscus inguinum liguritor,

Opicus[76] magister (sic eum ducet Phyllis)

Muliebre membrum quadriangulum cernit:

Triquetro coactu Δ literam ducit.

De valle femorum altrinsecus pares rugas,

Mediumque, fissi rima qua patet, callem

Ψ dicit esse: nam trifissilis forma est.

Cui ipse linguam quum dedit suam, Λ est:

Veramque in illis esse Φ notam sentit.

Quid imperite, Ρ putas ibi scriptum

Ubi locari Ι convenit longum?

Miselle doctor, Ȣ tibi sit obscoeno,

Tuumque nomen Θ sectilis signet.

(Eunus from Syria, glutton of the privy parts, Opican (clownish) master (Phyllis teaches him his letters) sees the woman’s organ four-cornered: when compressed to a triangle he makes it out the letter Δ. From the valley between the thighs start two furrows, a pair one on either side, while between them is a line, where lies the opening, the crack of the fissure; this he declares is Ψ; for ’tis three-pronged in outline. Then when he puts in his own tongue to it, lo! it is Λ; and he can feel there is a true Φ marked therein. What, dunce, think you a Ρ is inscribed there, where a long Ι should by rights be placed? Miserable, contemptible scholar, may the Ȣ (a noose) reward your foulness, and the cleft Θ (letter of condemnation, being initial of θάνατος,—death) be set against your name!) The more detailed interpretation of these obscene hieroglyphics the reader may find in the commentators on the passage, as well as in Forberg, loco citato p. 335.

[Diseases of the Cunnilingue.] § 24.

Can anyone believe such a vice as this was practised without incurring punishment? Yet there prevails amongst the Physicians of Antiquity, even including Galen, who knew the facts, an unbroken silence. It is impossible to suppose that girls and women could have their genital organs purged in this mode altogether without evil results, more particularly as actual experience in more modern times has proved that as a consequence of the habit of cunnilingere inflammations of the external genitals have been set up in girls, as well as ulcerations in older women through the licking of these parts by dogs. Among Ancient writers we have found no vouchers for this; but on the other hand several such exist to show the mischief that results from the habit to the cunnilingue himself. Excluding from consideration the pale complexion[77] and evil smell from the mouth, which were equally consequences of the other forms of vice already mentioned, we have paralysis of the tongue mentioned, at any rate in one passage[78]:

Sidere percussa est subito tibi, Zoile, lingua,

Dum lingis. Certe, Zoile, nunc futuis.

(Your tongue, Zoilus, has been stricken with a sudden doom, while in the act of licking. Why! surely, Zoilus, you copulate now). True this malady must be counted as one of very rare occurrence; but this is by no means the case with the ulcerations, which would seem not always to have confined their attacks to the tongue, but to have extended also, just as with the fellator, to the other parts of the mouth as well. This cannot but have had the effect of making it very difficult in diagnosis to distinguish between an affection of the sort due to fellation and one due to the vice of the cunnilingue.

Here again it is Martial to whom we are indebted for the proofs of our assertions. He leaves no room for doubt as to the way Manneius was punished for his debauchery in the following passage[79]:

Lingua maritus, moechus ore Manneius,

Summoenianis inquinatior buccis:

Quem cum fenestra vidit a Suburrana

Obscoena nudum lena, fornicem claudit,

Mediumque mavult basiare, quam summum:

Modo qui per omnes viscerum tubos ibat,

Et voce certa consciaque dicebat:

Puer, an puella matris esset in ventre;

(Gaudete cunni, vestra namque res acta est!)

Arrigere linguam non potest fututricem

Nam, dum tumenti mersus haeret in vulva[80]

Et vagientes intus audit infantes,

Partem gulosam solvit indecens morbus;

Nec purus esse nunc potest, nec impurus.

(Manneius was a husband with his tongue, a fornicator with his mouth, a more polluted wretch than the big-cheeked wenches of the suburbs. When a vile bawd saw him naked from a window in the Suburra, she shuts her brothel up, and had rather kiss his middle than his head. The man who but now could penetrate every vessel of the inwards, and say with assured voice and certain knowledge whether it were a boy or a girl in the mother’s belly,—rejoice, rejoice, organs of women, for your business is done for you,—the same cannot erect a fornicating tongue. For at the very moment he is plunged tight in the swollen vulva, and hears the babes whimpering within, lo! a shocking disease paralyses his greedy tongue. Now can he be neither clean, nor yet unclean).

The Commentators, in particular Farnabius, refer the complaint spoken of in the passage just quoted to paralysis of the tongue. Farnabius says in fact: “Paralysisne ἀπὸ τῆς ἀφέδρου καὶ τῶν ἐμμηνιῶν, quorum malefico humore marcescunt segetes, apes moriuntur etc., Plin. c. 15 Lib. V., an sideratio?” (Is paralysis intended, resulting from the menstruation and menstrual discharges, the poisonous humour of which will wither up crops, kill bees, etc.—Pliny ch. 15. Bk. V., or a sudden stroke?) Even supposing us willing to admit the possibility of menstrual blood bringing on paralysis of the tongue, there can at any rate be no question of such a thing here, inasmuch as it was with a pregnant woman Manneius carried out his vicious practises, and women in pregnancy do not usually menstruate,—a fact about which the Philologist naturally enough was only imperfectly posted. Of course the possibility is always there, although the Poet says nothing about it; and the expression vulva tumens (swollen organ) evidently stands here, as is clearly shown by what follows, for uterus gravidus (pregnant womb)[81]. The solvere (to loose, destroy) points in any case to a destruction, a dwindling, of the part, brought about by the indecens morbus (shocking disease),—which disease might very likely find its explanation in the scelerata lues (noxious contagion) mentioned on page 258 above. As a result of this, naturally enough not only did arrigere (to erect—the tongue) become impossible, but the impurus (Cunnilingus) (unclean cunnilingue) grew generally incapable of practising his vice. Nor yet was he purus (clean)[82] altogether, for was he not a cunnilingue?—and now he was even less purus, because he suffered from the indecens morbus (shocking disease), which even Farnabius has so far rightly understood, that he explains nec purus (nor yet clean) by morbo illo contaminatus (because contaminated by the said disease).

Rather more doubtful and difficult is the interpretation of the following passage of Martial[83], which would yet appear to be pertinent here:

Non dixi, Coracine, te cinaedum;

Non sum tam temerarius, nec audax,

Nec mendacia qui loquar libenter.

Si dixi, Coracine, te cinaedum,

Iratam mihi Pontiae lagenam,

Iratum calicem mihi Metili.

Iuro per Syrios tibi tumores,

Iuro per Berecynthios furores.

Quod dixi tamen, hoc leve et pusillum est.

Quod notum est, quod et ipse non negabis:

Dixi te, Coracine, cunnilingum.

(I never called you a cinaedus, Coracinus; I am not so rash or so reckless, not being one to speak lies willingly. If I called you a cinaedus, Coracinus, may Pontia’s jar be my enemy, and Metilius’poisoned cup. I take oath by your Syrian tumours, by your Berecynthian frenzies. What I did say is a trivial, an insignificant thing, a thing well known, that you will not yourself deny,—I said, Coracinus, you were a cunnilingue).

What were these Syrii tumores (Syrian tumours) that afflicted the cunnilingue Coracinus? Beroaldus, Annotat. ch. 25., understands them as “tumores et vibices a cultris et flagris quibus sacerdotes Cybeles (quam deam Syriam esse volunt) se sauciabant.” (the swellings and weals from the knives and scourges with which the priests of Cybelé,—whom they claim to be the Syrian goddess—used to wound themselves). Farnabius on the contrary thinks only Berecynthios furores (Berecynthian frenzies) to be intended in this explanation, and makes the tumores Syrii mean “ulcera et morbos quibus credebatur irata Isis inflare peierantes,” (ulcers and maladies with which the angry Isis was supposed to afflict false swearers), appealing to the passage of Persius[84], already brought forward a few pages back (p. 254.), which reads:

Hinc grandes Galli et cum sistro lusca sacerdos,

Incussere Deos inflantes corpora, si non

Praedictum ter mane caput gustaveris alli.

(Then the tall Galli, and the one-eyed priestess with her sacred rattle, instil terror of the gods that make men’s bodies swell, unless three times at dawn you have eaten the prescribed head of garlic).

Whether this passage affords any direct proof would seem doubtful, inasmuch as the inflare corpus (to make the body swell) properly speaking only refers to the abdomen. To this also the eating of the allium (garlic), which no doubt first won its magic significance on account of its carminative properties, appears to point.

However another explanation is possible. Referring back to the passage of Porphyrius quoted above on p. 254., the tumores Coracinus had contracted in consequence of his general incontinence with women, which incontinence had at last brought him as a senex? (old man) to such a condition of weakness that nothing was left him but the vice of cunnilingere to satisfy his still unexhausted lubricity. A side light in this case may be thrown on the matter by Horace’s description of the Anus libidinosa (The lecherous old woman) in Epodes VIII. 9. 19.:

Venter mollis et femur tumentibus

Exile suris additum.—Fascinum

Quod ut superbo provoces ab inguine

Ore allaborandum est tibi.

(Flabby belly and skinny thigh joined with swollen calves,—A tool, that requires you, in order to call it up from the supercilious groin, to work it with the mouth). Casaubon in his commentary on the passage of Persius is for connecting this, as well as the Tumores Syrii, with ἕλκεα Συριακὰ (Syrian sores), and—as quoted on p. 253 above—to regard them as a consequence of the wrath of the Dea Syria (Syrian goddess). No doubt as a matter of fact the tumores were a result of debauchery, one that was prevalent in Syria and was disseminated thence to Rome, for they attacked a cunnilingue no less than other debauchees; but this brings us no nearer to a knowledge of their nature. We should perhaps be inclined to regard them as swellings of the tonsils or of the lympathic glands of the throat, having the same significance as the inguinal buboes in affections of the genitals.

But what are the Berecynthii furores (Berecynthian frenzies)? Possibly nocturnal pains in the bones, that torment a patient to the pitch of frenzy? The metaphor, drawn from the nocturnal rites of Cybelé, must be admitted to be a happy one. Still, however acceptable conjectures of the sort may be to many, we cannot take them seriously. It appears to us most judicious to regard the Syrii tumores as being ulcerations that covered the body of Coracinus, and by their violent itching reduced him to a state of frenzy. Our view as stated is confirmed by Epigram 108. of Ausonius:

In scabiosum Polygitonem.

Thermarum in solio si quis Polygitona vidit

Ulcera membrorum scabie putrefacta foventem,

Praeposuit cunctis spectacula talia ludis.

Principio tremulis gannitibus aëra pulsat,

Verbaque lascivos meretricum imitantia coetus

Vibrat et obscoenae numeros pruriginis implet.

Brachia deinde rotat velut enthea daemone Maenas,

Pectus, crura, latus, ventrem, femora, inguina, suras,

Tergum, colla, humeros luteae Symplegadis antrum.

Tam diversa locis vaga carnificina pererrat,

Donec marcentem calidi fervore lavacri

Blandus letali solvat dulcedine morbus.

Desectos sic fama viros, ubi cassa libido

Femineos coetus et non sua bella lacessit,

Irrita vexato consumere gaudia lecto:

Titillata brevi quum iam sub fine voluptas

Fervet et ingesto peragit ludibria morsu.

Turpia non aliter Polygiton membra resolvit,

Et quia debentur suprema piacula vitae,

Ad Phlegethonteas sese iam praeparat undas.

(To the scabby Polygiton.—If any man caught sight of Polygiton on the seat of the Thermae bathing the sores on his limbs all rotten with scab, he preferred so entertaining a spectacle to all the games. First he beats the air with twittering, whining noises, and utters broken sounds in imitation of the wanton embraces of harlots, and completes the symphony of his foul-minded lechery. Then he twirls his arms about like a Maenad under the god’s afflatus; breast, legs, flank, belly, thighs, groin, calves, back, neck, shoulders, cave of the bemired Symplegades,—i.e. hollow between buttocks,—in so many different places does the shooting torture fly, until he droops and faints in the warmth of the hot bath and the disease is soothed and gives a fatal respite. So it is said castrated eunuchs, when barren desire tries hard for embraces with women and for contests they cannot properly engage in, are consumed with empty transports on the tossed and tumbled bed,—till eventually their lust, tickled and tickled, flames high for a last moment, and completes the wanton act by applying the mouth and biting. So with Polygiton a final spasm relaxes his disfigured limbs, and the last sin-offerings of his life being due, thus makes himself ready for the waves of Phlegethon).

True the connexion with the vice of cunnilingere is apparently lost here, but this also may be preserved without any great straining of the words, as we shall see presently; and accordingly the Tumores Syrii can be quite well regarded as a consequence of the vice of the cunnilingus.

[Mentagra (Tetter of the Chin).]
§ 25.

Ever since the so-called first appearance of Venereal Disease, most of the advocates of the antiquity of the complaint have made a point of bringing in Mentagra[85] within the purview of the quotations they adduce to prove their contention, although strictly speaking they were never likely to succeed in a direct demonstration that the disease was really and truly connected with sexual excesses. Accordingly, to the present day the majority of them see in it nothing more than a form of Leprosy, particularly as Hensler[86] and Sprengel were among those who decided in favour of its leprous character. Instead of giving a useless list of names of the different authors, who in former days declared for the one view or the other, we think it more expedient to quote first of all the capital authority, a passage in Pliny[87], setting this down as it stands so as to be able afterwards to form a correct appreciation of its bearing:

Cap. I. “Sensit et facies hominum novos omnique aevo priore incognitos, non Italiae modo, verum etiam universae prope Europae morbos: tunc quoque non tota Italia, nec per Illyricum Galliasve aut Hispanias magnopere vagatos, aut alibi, quam Romae circaque: sine dolore quidem illos ac sine pernicie vitae: sed tanta foeditate, ut quaecunque mors praeferenda esset.

Cap. II. “Gravissimum ex his lichenas appellavere Graeco nomine: Latine, quoniam a mento fere oriebatur, ioculari primum lascivia (ut est procax natura multorum in alienis miseriis) mox et usurpato vocabulo, mentagram: occupantem in multis totos utique vultus, oculis tantum immunibus, descendentem[88] vero et in colla pectusque ac manus, foedo cutis furfure[89].

Cap. III. “Non fuerat haec lues apud maiores patresque nostros. Et primum Tiberii Claudii, Caesaris principatu medio irrepsit in Italiam, quodam Perusino equite Romano Quaestorio scriba, quum in Asia apparuisset inde contagionem eius importante. Nec sensere id malum feminae aut servitia, plebesque humilis, aut media: sed proceres veloci transitu osculi maxime: foediore multorum qui perpeti medicinam toleraverant, citatrice, quam morbo. Causticis[90] namque curabatur, ni usque in ossa corpus exustum esset, rebellante taedio. Advenerunt ex Aegypto, genitrice talium vitiorum, medici, hanc solam operam afferentes, magna sua praeda. Siquidem certum est, Manilium Cornutum, e Praetoriis legatum Aquitanicae provinciae, H.S. CC. elocasse in eo morbo curandum sese.”

(Ch. I. Moreover the human face experienced new diseases, and such as had been unknown in any former age not merely to Italy but to the whole of Europe very nearly, and these not widely diffused over Italy generally, or through Illyricum or the provinces of Gaul or of Spain, or indeed anywhere else but just in Rome and its neighbourhood. They were painless, it is true, and did not involve loss of life, but were of such a horrible nature that death in any form would have been preferable.

Ch. II. The most serious of these diseases they called lichenes,—scabs, a Greek name; in Latin, as the malady generally showed itself first on the chin, it was known as mentagra,—chin-bane, scab or tetter of the chin, at the first by way of jest and mockery—for it is the nature of the multitude to make merry at others’misfortunes,—but soon this became the recognized word. In many persons it covered absolutely the whole countenance, the eyes alone being left unaffected, with a horrible scurf of the skin, going down sometimes to the neck as well, and breast, and hands.

Ch. III. This plague had not existed among our ancestors or fathers. For the first time it crept into Italy in the middle of the reign of Tiberius Claudius Caesar, a certain Perusinius, a Roman knight and Quaestorian secretary, after a period of service in Asia, importing the contagion from there. But women did not suffer from the malady, or slaves, nor yet common folk of humble or middle-class station; but nobles, and this particularly by the rapid infection of an embrace. In many cases the scar, where patients had submitted to medical treatment, was more horrible than the disease itself. For indeed it was curable by caustics, except when the body had been consumed to the very bones, the slowness of the treatment defeating its own end. Physicians arrived from Egypt, mother-land of such taints, practising this cure exclusively, to their own great profit. If, that is, it is true that Manilius Cornutus, of the Praetorians and governor of the Province of Aquitania, offered 200,000 sesterces for his cure when attacked by this disease).

Here if ever, it particularly behoves us to begin with an elucidation of the meaning of the name given to the malady under discussion. Gruner[91] long ago called attention to the divergence of opinion as to the signification of λειχῆνες (scabs) among the writers of Antiquity, but without success in putting the actual facts in a clear light. We must try if we can be more fortunate. An old etymologist says: λειχὴν παρὰ τὸ λείχω, καὶ γὰρ φάσιν ἐκ τοῦ λείχειν τὸ πάθος ἐπαίρεται[92], (λειχὴν comes from λείχω,—I lick, because they say the complaint is set up by licking). On this we may say.—there is no doubt λειχῆνες and λιχῆνες are derived from λείχειν or λίχειν, but the explanation Kraus gives of the reason in his Lexicon we cannot think conceivable, viz. “because Lichen, the same as a parasitic plant does, or a skin-disease in animals, always creeps round further and further (see Herpes,—creeping eruption), or as it were licks its way,” for λείχειν is not so much lambere, λάπτειν,—to lick over, lick along, as lingere, ligurire[93],—to lick up, lick up greedily. At the same time it is true the word (lambere) was used by the Romans in a somewhat similar sense, so perhaps we ought not to refer to lambit flamma (a flame licks), but rather to Plautus’expression (Pers. prolog. 5.), “quorum imagines lambunt hederae sequaces” (whose images creeping ivy-tendrils lick, i.e. entwine). Most probably there are two different stems underlying the word. Of these one is λέγειν,—to lay, etc., hence λέγνη, the edging, the border, λίγνυς, soot (depositing itself on the edge), together with the bye-forms λέχω, λίχω with which in fact λιχὴν, moss[94], so far as it forms on the edge, the surface, fringes it, would be connected. The other stem will be λίγω, or λείγω (comp. λίβω and λείβω), λείχω and λείχην, λίγγω, λίζω, to which would have to be referred also λίγυς and λιγυρὸς,—clear, shrill (ligurire, lingere,—to lick greedily, to lick), in all of which the underlying sense is of licking, and the noise connected with it.

It is plain that later on the derivatives of these stems suffered manifold variations and corruptions; but how much of all this is to be attributed to speakers and writers among the Greeks themselves, and how much to subsequent transcribers and editors of their work, it might be difficult to decide. But every day we have occasion to note a number of words, to which accident or other circumstances have given an ambiguous character. These, used quite unsuspectingly by the ignorant, make the better informed person blush, or else extort a smile from him that often enough causes the speaker no little embarrassment to know the reason. Undoubtedly it was the same with the Greeks and Romans, and so confusions between λίχω and λείχω, λιχὴν and λειχὴν, might have easily arisen, from which people were subsequently unable to extricate themselves. Originally perhaps λείχω, equally with lingo and ligurio (to lick), may have had the simple sense of licking, and only through later accretions to the meaning, have acquired an ambiguous character; soon however this got transferred to it to the exclusion of all others, and we find it used preferentially as the regular word for cunnilingere. The correctness of our conclusion would seem to follow above all from the passage of Aristophanes[95] given below, where it is the additional words that narrow down the meaning of λείχω (I lick), and definitely bring out the special signification. The words are said of Ariphrades, who reminds us of the ἀποφρὰς (unmentionable), the name Lucian appropriates to Timarchus:

Οὐδὲ παμπόνηρος, ἀλλὰ καὶ προσεξεύρηκέ τι·

τὴν γὰρ αὑτοῦ γλῶτταν αἰσχραῖς ἡδοναῖς μαίνεται,

ἐν κασαυρίοισι λείχων τὴν ἀπόπτυστον δρόσον,

καὶ μολύνων τὴν ὑπήνην, καὶ κυκῶν τὰς ἐσχάρας.

(Nor yet utterly villainous is he, but he has discovered yet another device; for he polluted his own tongue with foul delights, in the stews licking up the abominable dew, defiling the hair on the upper lip, and tumbling the girls’nymphae).

In the following Epigram[96] of an unknown author λείχω is found used absolutely, without any supplementary words:

Χείλων καὶ λείχων ἴσα γράμματα· ἐς τί δὲ τοῦτο;

Λείχει καὶ Χείλων, κἂν ἴσα, κἂν ἄνισα.

(Χείλων,—a proper name, also means of the lips,—and λείχων,—licking,—have the like letters; now what does this point to? Chilon licks lips, whether lips like his own, or whether unlike). In explanation of this Epigram Forbiger says (loco citato p. 326.): “Lusus in Chilonem cunnilingum. Hunc ait iure quodam suo lingere, qui vel nomine iisdem literis constante prae se fert lingentem et lingentem quidem tum labra oris, ut labris ligentis similia, tum cunni, ut dissimilia.” (Pun on the name of Chilon, a cunnilingue. The poet says he (Chilon) licks by a sort of inherent right of his own, who even in his name, made up of the same letters, proclaims himself as licking, and licking now the lips of the mouth, which are like the lips of the licker, now those of the female organ, which are unlike). Χεῖλος was in fact used also of the lips of a woman’s organ, the nymphae; the Scholiast on τὰς ἐσχάρας (the nymphae) in the passage from Aristophanes given a little above, interprets this word by τὰ χείλη τῶν γυναικείων αἰδοίων (the lips of the female privates). According to Schneider in his Lexicon χείλων (adj.) signifies thick-lipped. Perhaps it was this very Epigram that led Lambert Bosius to make the statement that χείλων arose by a mere transposition of the letters from λείχον.

Now if λείχην,—for we consider it should be thus accented,—is derived from λείχω (I lick), we cannot but regard it as meaning: something produced by licking, a complaint brought on by licking, and particularly by the licking of the cunnilingue! Surely the Greeks could hardly have expressed themselves more clearly. Then the fact that the name came from the mouth of the common people is the very best reason for its not having been understood by the educated. Yet all the while an entirely similar form of expression has grown up in the mouth of the German common people, the real meaning of which very few have fathomed, but which most certainly arose in the same way as the Greek λείχην. No doubt many of my readers have again and again heard it said of some one with an eruption round the mouth, that is, someone suffering from Herpes labialis (Creeping eruption of the lips): “Well! you have been licking!”—for which educated people substitute the obviously insufficient, “You have been picking!” Very commonly again one may hear: “You have been licking greben, or picking greben; and this word greben is understood as being identical with grieben,—greaves in English, i.e. the remnants of lard that has been cut up into pieces and fried, because the separate pustules of the herpes labialis resemble in appearance the greaves. So people sometimes also say still more explicitly, “You have been licking, or picking, greaves; and one of them has been left sticking to your mouth, to prove your greediness!”

This explanation may seem a very likely one to many; nevertheless we incline to believe the word to be of later origin, and to have arisen from ignorance of the actual facts. We consider it more probable that greben owes its origin to some corruption of language growing out of gremium, the bosom. We have been led to this conjecture by a statement of Adelung’s in his Dictionary, Article “Grieben”, where he says: “In middle-Latin grieben, (greaves), were called, in accordance with a common interchange change of the letters b. and m. gremium”,—though indeed we cannot regard the word as solely and entirely mediæval Latin, for it is found occurring as early as Pliny (Hist. Nat. XII. 19.) and Columella (Res Rust. XII. 19. 3.), and is evidently connected with cremare (to burn). So just as in this case cremium and gremium may have been used interchangeably, has grebe grown out of greme in German, and the latter come to be used as a synonym of griebe,—the latter words according to this having as little in common with one another as the former. However those better practised in the science of word formation must here decide!

Now as to the word Mentagra (Tetter, Scab). This was evidently a word first framed by the Romans, as is distinctly stated not alone by Pliny, but by Galen as well (De compos. medic. secundum locos Bk. V., edit. Kühn Vol. XII. p. 839.). The latter says: Ἐκδόριον λειχήνων· ταύτῃ Πάμφιλος χρησάμενος ἐπὶ Ῥώμης πλεῖστον ἐπορίσατο ἐπικρατούσης ἐν τῇ πόλει τῆς μεντάγρας λεγομένης. (Blister for Lichenes (Scabs); in this way Pamphilus in his practise at Rome made most headway against the Mentagra as it was called, then prevalent in the city). It is usually considered to be formed on the analogy of Podagra, Chiragra (gout of the feet, gout of the hands) etc. from mentum, the chin, and ἄγρα, the act of catching, seizing hold of,—so a disease that attacks the chin. But more probably all these words are compounded not with ἄγρα at all, but with ἄλγος (suffering). That is to say just as ἀλγαλέος, by Attic interchange of letters, becomes ἀργαλέος (grievous), κεφαλαλγία becomes κεφαλαργία (head-ache), and ληθαλγία, ληθαργία (drowsiness, lethargy), so from ποδαλγία we get ποδαργία, and then by metathesis ποδάγρα (gout). (Comp. Doederlein “Lateinische Synonyme und Etymologien”,—Latin Synonyms and Etymologies Pt. 4. p. 424.). The remark Pliny adds however “ioculari primum lascivia” (at first by way of jesting mockery) evidently points to some ambiguity underlying the word. But whether this consists in the recognition of the likeness in sound between mentum, the chin, and menta, or mentula, the virile member, or is to be looked for in the ἄγρα, it might be difficult to determine. Still it seems probable, but without wishing to entirely exclude the former hypothesis, that the latter is the case, as will appear directly.

Galen[97] distinguishes between λειχὴν ἁπλοῦς and λειχὴν ἄγριος (simple lichen, and malignant lichen) in his enumeration of Skin-diseases, and still more plainly in another place[98] he says: “λειχὴν is likewise a Skin-disease; there are two forms of it, ὁ μὲν ἥμερος καὶ πρᾳότερος, ὁ δὲ ἄγριος καὶ χαλεπώτερος (the one benignant and milder, the other malignant and more serious). But in both of them minute scales are detached from the skin, and the part of the skin underneath the scales is reddened and almost ulcerated. The affection arises from a salt phlegmatic humour (φλέγματος ἁλμυροῦ) and yellow gall, hence the scales fall from the skin as in glazed pottery-ware (? ἐπὶ τῶν ἁλμῶν τῶν κεραμίων). The affection is cured by internal phlegmagogues and external embrocations.” We have already on p. 139. above, in the footnote on ἄγριος (wild, savage) and χαλεπός (hard, harsh), noted how these words are used with special reference to the vice of paederastia, but they are also applied generally to the vice, the different forms of which we have been examining here. This follows from Plato[99] and Plutarch[100], at any rate so far as ἄγριος is concerned, which indeed we may conveniently render by vicious. The original meaning being overlooked, λείχην and λιχὴν had been taken as synonymous,—possibly the Latin lichenos first led to the mistake; then naturally enough an appropriate epithet was sought, to signify the lichen which was the result of licking in a vicious fashion. But this according to the already existing mode of speech could be nothing else than ἄγριος[101] again,—λειχὴν ἄγριος, with which λειχὴν ἁπλοῦς, lichen insons, (simple, innocent lichen) was naturally contrasted.

Yet while Criton, as cited in Aëtius, simply and quite correctly interpreted Mentagra by ἄγριος λειχὴν (fierce, malignant lichen), Galen appears to have been still ignorant of the special meaning. This is shown by the words ἥμερος and πρᾳότερος (gentle, benignant,—milder), which obviously are correct opposites of ἄγριος only if the latter is understood, as it is in Celsus, as equivalent to ferus (fierce, malignant), but in no way account for the ἁπλοῦς (simple, innocent), which Galen no doubt found already established as distinguishing epithet of λιχὴν. How little he fathomed the nature of the evil, is proved by his ætiology of it, which makes the complaint result from the φλέγμα ἁλμυρὸν (salt phlegmatic humour) and the χολὴ ξανθὴ (yellow gall). The unprofessional Martial had a better word to say on the subject when he wrote his sordidique lichenes (filthy, squalid-looking lichens). Similarly it would seem the agra in Mentagra should be taken as pointing to ἄγριος (fierce, malignant). Can it be perhaps that in this way the μολύνων τὴν ὑπήνην (polluting the hair on the upper lip) of Aristophanes, the Latin barbam inquinare (to pollute the beard), have come to be used as synonyms for cunnilingere? Martial seems to imply it by his triste mentum, mentum periculosum (disfigured chin, perilous chin). Perhaps too the Sycosis menti (Sycosis,—fig-like eruption, of the chin) of Celsus and the later Greek medical writers should likewise be regarded as coming under this head. At a matter of fact, Archigenes says so in so many words, as cited in Galen (De comp. med. secundum locos. Bk. V. edit. Kühn Vol. XII. p. 847.), ἐπὶ δὲ τῶν συκωδῶν τῶν ἐπὶ τοῦ γενείου, λεγομένων δὲ μενταγρῶν, ὑπὸ δέ τινων λειχήνων ἀγρίων, ποιεῖ κ. τ. λ. (but in the case of the sycotic, or fig-like, eruptions on the chin, which are called mentagrae, and by others malignant lichens, he proceeds as follows, etc.), and calls the affection of the chin, as do other Physicians, generally ἐξανθήματα ἐν τοῖς γενείοις (efflorescences, eruptions on the chin),—p. 824.

If we have thus succeeded in establishing the meanings of lichens and mentagra, the rest of the passage of Pliny will admit of easy explanation. The disease in many cases it seems invaded the whole face, in the same way as the atra lues (black contagion) in the passages quoted above from Martial under fellation. Perhaps all of these,—indeed, Pliny also says lues,—are the be referred, as is actually done by Farnabius in his notes, to mentagra, seeing that the disease could perfectly well, though certainly much seldomer, arise equally from the practise of fellation. The double entendre between mentum (the chin) and menta or mentula (the virile member) would so acquire all the more point.

The expression foedo cutis furfure (with a horrible scurf of the skin) appears to have led a number of authors to believe that this was the capital characteristic of the complaint, and that the distinction between λιχὴν and λείχην was merely one of degree. This view was advocated in particular by Willian[102], who ascribes it also to Paulus Aegineta[103] as well as to Oribasius[104] though both of these authors limit themselves to saying that the moderately siccative remedies are of no benefit in λείχην ἄγριος (malignant lichen), whereas the more violent ones aggravate it, and that for this reason it was called ἄγριος. Hence Willian’s Lichen agrius (malignant lichen) has nothing in common with the lichen of the Greeks and Romans but the mere name, for it follows clearly from the words foediore cicatrice (with a more horrible scar) that occur a little further down in Pliny, that a process of skinning over by ulceration was part of the disease, and did not owe its existence solely to the caustic remedies employed.

The immunity of women[105] equally admits of easy explanation, for in the first place women were not likely to have readily conceived the idea of acting after the manner of a cunnilingue[106], and even if fellation is admitted to be an occasionally concurrent cause of mentagra, still it would seem, as already stated, to supervene much less often as a consequence of the latter vice; while in cases where it does, it is of a milder form and it is rather the internal parts of the mouth that are imperilled. Besides, it is to be remembered that women generally speaking suffer less frequently from pustulous disorders of the cutaneous glands affecting the face than men do, as is well seen at the present day with Acne. In the parts neighbouring on the genitals this is exactly reversed. Still this immunity of women must not be insisted on too far, as those persons of the female sex who used to practise fellation, the Summoenianae (women of the suburbs) lay too completely outside the range of Pliny’s observation.

As to the servi (slaves) and Plebs humilis (Commons of humble station), these were surely unlikely, however little restraint they may have put on their sensual appetites, to have readily fallen into suchlike forms of vice,—forms which spring as a rule from the brain of unoccupied, rich idlers. We have only to appeal to modern experience to substantiate this. How many individuals of the lowest and middle classes have the records of forensic medicine to show as having been paederasts and so on? Wild aberrations in morals have at no period begun with the common man! So we see it was the Proceres (Nobles) who were in an especial degree attacked by the mentagra.

At the same time the most conspicuous cause of mentagra, the practice of cunnilingere was by no means the only way of getting it, for the malady, like condylomata on the genital organs, was evidently connected with a contagion,—a fact which is clearly enough brought out by the layman Pliny, whereas the Physicians say nothing about this. Accordingly the disorder was capable of being disseminated by kissing from one individual to another. But it was not the velox transitus osculi (swift transmission of a kiss) that was instrumental in spreading the disease, but rather the basium (wanton kiss),—which depended on some yet unidentified lascivious device[107], sucking, playing with the tongue or the like. Still we must remember that at the very time the mentagra was spreading with such terrible rapidity, a perfect mania for kissing had broken out at Rome. Martial describes this admirably in the two following Epigrams, which are of the very highest importance in connection with our subject:

Book XII. Epigram 59:

De importunis basiatoribus.

Tantum dat tibi Roma basiorum

Post annos modo quindecim reverso,

Quantum Lesbia non dedit Catullo.

Te vicinia tota, te pilosus

Hircoso premit osculo colonus.

Hinc instat tibi textor, inde fullo,

Hinc sutor modo pelle basiata,

Hinc menti dominus periculosi,

Hinc defioculusque et inde lippus,

Fellatorque recensque cunnilingus.

Iam tanti tibi non fuit redire.

(Of pestilent Kissers: Rome bestows more kisses on you, on your return to her after fifteen years’ absence, than ever Lesbia gave Catullus. The whole neighbourhood kisses you, and the hirsute countryman presses you in his goaty embrace. One side the weaver is upon you, the other the fuller, here the cobbler who but now kissed his leather; here comes the owner of a perilous chin, here the one-eyed man and here the blear, and the fellator, and the cunnilingue fresh from work. Now surely to return was not of such importance to you as all this.)

Book XI. Epigram 98:

Ad Bassum.

Effugere non est, Basse, basiatores.

Instant, morantur, persequuntur, occurrunt

Et hinc et illinc, usquequaque, quacunque.

Non ulcus acre pustulaeve lucentes,

Nec triste mentum sordidique lichenes,

Nec labra pingui delibuta ceroto,

Nec congelati gutta proderit nasi.

Et aestuantem basiant et algentem,

Et nuptiale basium reservantem.

Non te cucullis asseret caput tectum,

Lectica nec te tuta pelle veloque,

Nec vindicabit sella saepius clausa.

Rimas per omnes basiator intrabit.

Non consulatus ipse, non tribunatus,

Saevique fasces, nec superba clamosi

Lictoris abiget virga basiatorem.

Sedeas in alto tu licet tribunali,

Et e curuli iura gentibus reddas:

Ascendet illa basiator atque illa:

Febricitantem basiabit et flentem:

Dabit oscitanti basium natantique,

Dabit et cacanti. Remedium mali solum est

Facias amicum, basiare quem nolis.

(To Bassus: Escape the kissers, no! it is not to be done, Bassus. They set upon you, wait for you, pursue you, meet you, here, there, and everywhere, in every street, at every corner. Neither acrid ulcer nor shiny pustules, neither disfigured chin nor foul scabs, nor lips anointed with pink salve, nor the drop at the tip of a frozen nose will save you. They kiss a man sweating with heat and starving with cold, nay! even a man keeping his lips pure for the nuptial kiss. A head muffled in hoods will not exempt you, nor a litter guarded with rug and curtain, nor the sedan kept closed most of the time get you off. The kisser will in by every chink. Not the very consulship, not the tribuneship, not the stern fasces and threatening rod of the shouting lictor will keep away the kisser. Though you sit exalted on the high tribunal, or give laws to the people from the curule seat, both to one and the other the kisser will climb up. He will kiss a man shaking with fever, and drivelling with cold. He will give a kiss to a man gaping, to a man swimming, even to a man shitting! The one and only cure for the plague is to make a real friend, whom you will not need to kiss).

Now we shall be in a position to explain to our satisfaction what Martial meant by basia lasciva (wanton kisses),—XI. 24.—basia maligna (pestilent kisses),—XII. 55.—and Petronius (ch. 23.) by his conspuere aliquem basio immundissimo (to beslobber anyone with a most filthy kiss); and we shall be in no way surprised at the fact that mentagra not only attacked the Roman nobles as a virtual epidemic, but that the velox transitus osculi (the swift transmission of a kiss) was alleged by Pliny as a reason of its communication.

Finally as to the historical factor in connection with mentagra,—it is implied in the account Pliny gives that it was only at Rome it was regarded as a new disease. It must have been already known to the Greeks, for they possessed the name Lichen for it. The Greek physicians, of whom several of the ones quoted by Galen lived some considerable time before Claudius, know nothing about the disease being a new one, while Galen himself says simply, ἐπικρατούσης ἐν τῇ πόλει τῆς μεντάγρας λεγομέμης, (when the mentagra as it was called was prevalent in the city). Plutarch again, though he (Symposiaca bk. VIII. Quaest. 9.) wrote a special Chapter on new diseases, with particular reference to Elephantiasis, never mentions mentagra at all. He represents it as having been introduced into Rome from Asia, and it was from Egypt, the Genetrix talium vitiorum (Mother-land of suchlike abominations), the Physicians[108] were imported who understood how to cure the disorder. We have more than once noted that Asia was the breeding place of sexual excesses, and described how vice spread from thence over different countries and how as a result of these practices the affections of the parts naturally concerned that arose first in Asia subsequently passed on to these same countries. For Rome this was in an especial degree the case with Egypt, where the undermining of morality had gone farthest; Martial[109] spoke justly when he said “Nequitias tellus scit dare nulla magis,” (No other land knows better how to produce finished rascality). But the intercourse with Asia and Egypt arose mainly in the time of Pompey, and became from that period ever more active, while concurrently luxury was on the increase and the old Virtus (manly virtue) of the Romans disappearing more and more every day,—above all when Tiberius by his own example elevated every form of vice into a sort of fancy article demanded by fashion.

Not that the Emperor went unpunished, for he himself probably suffered from mentagra. Julian[110] says of him, that when Romulus had invited to the feast of the Saturnalia all gods and Caesars, Tiberius appeared with the rest, “but when he turned round to take his seat, on his back could be seen in thousands scars, marks of burnings and scrapings, indurated weals and callosities, results of his excesses and wild lusts, cankers and scabs as it were burnt in”. Nay! according to Suetonius[111] his face itself bore crebri et subtiles tumores (a multitude of minute swellings); and Tacitus[112] says of him: Praegracilis et incurva proceritas, nudus capillo vertex, ulcerosa facies, ac plerumque medicaminibus interstincta, (Tall and of a most graceful, albeit bowed, figure; the head bald, the face covered with ulcers, and generally patched with medical plasters). When Galen[113] mentions a τροχίσκος πρὸς ἕρπητας ὁ Τιβηρίου Καίσαρος (a lozenge for creeping eruptions, Tiberius Caesar’s), this does not in any way necessarily imply that this was prescribed as a remedy against eruptive symptoms on the face, for Tiberius, as we see from the passage quoted from Julian, suffered from eruptions on all the other parts of his body. Even if an affection of the face was intended, the expression ἕρπης (creeping eruption), in view of the marked tendency of the disease to spread to neighbouring parts, was not at all an unnatural one to be used; and we may say, speaking generally, that the view which holds the Greeks to have indicated by the word ἕρπης any one definite and distinct form of eruption is entirely mistaken. Bertrandi[114] indeed endeavours to show that mentagra was a form of malignant tetter. That the application of plasters as a remedy in mentagra was frequently recommended and employed is shown both by Galen and Aëtius[115].

But in proportion as the exciting cause grew ever more and more common, the cunnilingue being now no longer contented with girls, but employing for the satisfaction of his shameful mania women and even pregnant women as well, and at last actually women during menstruation, the resulting consequences were bound to occur not only more frequently but also in a more dangerous form. At first it was merely single pustules, which appeared round the mouth and took possession of the chin, and which were confounded with Sycosis menti (Sycosis,—fig-like eruption of the chin), a complaint liable to arise from other causes as well and one long since familiar, without attracting particular attention as anything uncommon. Later on when neither morbid vaginal phlegm nor yet menstrual blood repelled the cunnilingue any longer, there was set up a diseased process in the cutaneous glands, the resulting secretion rapidly drying formed a white crust or scurf, and this was detached in flakes resembling bran. All this could not fail to arouse remark, and accordingly the Romans, little practised in medical diagnosis, saw in it a new disease, which in turn received a new name. Just as in more modern times the introduction of Venereal disease was attributed to a leprous Knight from the Holy Land, so now at Rome Perusinus, eques Romanus, Quaestorius scriba (Perusinus, a Roman knight, a secretary in the Quaestorian office) was held responsible for bringing mentagra from Asia. As a matter of fact he probably got his mentagra in Asia in exactly the same manner in which it was acquired in Rome,—if indeed we are on general grounds to give any weight to this part of the story. At any rate modern times have given us many examples of how much credence mankind is ready to give to an account of the introduction of a disease by one definite individual. But the disease did not stop at the cutaneous glands, the hair-glands were also involved, the hair fell away, and ulcers formed, which spread around with destructive virulence, as was particularly the case in Martial’s day. On the other hand it is true deep-seated ulceration never supervened, but the disease rather extended on the surface from the face onwards, spreading more or less over the whole of the rest of the body[116], and thus assumed the form of Psora (Itch) or Lepra (Leprosy),—a phænomenon we shall have to return to once more later, its right appreciation being of the utmost importance for the History of Venereal Disease.

Now, since on the one hand every cunnilingue is not attacked by mentagra, while on the other sometimes ulcers of the inner portion of the mouth, sometimes mentagra, and the latter sometimes local, sometimes of wide extent, are noted, the following question calls for an answer. What circumstances conditioned these phænomena and, generally, the special frequency of mentagra in Italy? Leaving out of account a variety of other considerations, we are bound in this place to call in along with other factors of our explanation some special and particular influence of the Genius epidemicus (the aggregate of epidemical conditions at large), which just at that time favoured the rise of skin complaints. However slight the material Antiquity affords us on this point, and especially so far as concerns the time a little before and after Our Lord’s birth, still we do find a datum for Italy at any rate which we certainly ought not to leave unutilized. This is the statement of Pliny (ch. 5. and Bk. XX. ch. 52.) to the effect that it was in the time of Pompey the Great, or according to Plutarch (loco citato) in that of Asclepiades, that elephantiasis first showed itself in Italy. It follows that at that period favourable external circumstances also were in existence in connection with the conditions of disease at large,—as indeed the ready extension of mentagra from the chin onwards to the rest of the body proves even more clearly.

But it must not for a moment be supposed that therefore mentagra was of epidemic origin. Without at all wishing to embark on the consideration of the ætiological factors of elephantiasis, we may just mention the fact that according to Pliny’s account this disease too, equally with mentagra, would seem to have always begun with the face[117]. The conjecture is all but unavoidable, that very possibly in either case it was the practices of the cunnilingue that supplied the exciting cause for the misfortune; and this would also probably explain how it was elephantiasis came to be connected in men’s minds with the Morbus phoeniceus (Phoenician disease). Still, as already explained, this would only be equivalent to making it responsible in individual cases,—cases that tend inevitably to render the proper understanding of the action of elephantiasis, as well as of its history, considerably more difficult. May it not also be to some extent the case that under the general name of elephantiasis forms of disease of very different sorts have been confounded? The views held by the Ancients on this and on the other skin diseases still remain in too much obscurity for anyone to be able to give a decisive judgement on the point. For the rest most probably the atra lues and scelerata lues (black contagion, abominable contagion), spoken of above, likewise come under the category of mentagra. This we have felt ourselves constrained to ascribe not solely to the practise of the vice of the cunnilingue as a cause, but to fellation also,—only that in the latter case, as we have pointed out, it is rather the inner, in the former rather the external parts, that became affected.

[Morbus Campanus.]
(Campanian Disease).
§ 26.

Several of the commentators on Horace, and particularly Laevinus Torrentius[118] have referred the much-discussed Morbus Campanus[119] to the head of mentagra; accordingly this will be no inappropriate place at any rate to mention it, though without aiming at a complete explanation. Horace represents two buffoons, Messius and Sarmentus, as rallying each other for the amusement of the company:

— — Messi clarum genus Osci,

Sarmenti domina extat, ab his maioribus orti

Ad pugnam venere. Prior Sarmentus: Equi te

Esse feri similem dico. Ridemus: et ipse

Messius: Accipio; caput et movet. O, tua cornu

Ni foret exsecto frons, inquit, quid faceres, cum

Sic mutilus miniteris? At illi foeda cicatrix

Setosam laevi frontem turpaverat oris.

Campanum in morbum, in faciem permulta iocatus

Pastorem saltaret uti Cyclopa, rogabat;

Nil illi larva aut tragicis opus esse cothurnis.

Multa Cicirrus ad haec.

(Messius was sprung of the renowned race of the Oscans, Sarmentus’mistress is yet living; from these ancestors derived, they came to the fray. First begins Sarmentus: “I declare you are just like an unbroken horse.” At this sally we laugh, and Messius himself says: “I accept the likeness,” and tosses his head. “Oh! if your horn had not been amputated from your brow,” says he then, “what would you do, since you threaten us so fiercely, mutilated as you are?” Now an ugly scar disfigured the left side of his shaggy brow. After making a number of jibes at his Campanian disease, and his face, he asked him to dance the shepherd Cyclops; saying there needed no mask and tragic buskins. Many jests Cicirrus added as well).

Messius who is chiefly spoken of in the above passage, is in the first place represented as an Oscan by birth. Now the whole race of the Oscans was, as Festus informs us, notorious for its unnatural excesses in matters of Love; we read in him, p. 191: “Obscum duas diversas et contrarias significationes habet. Nam Cloatius putat eo vocabulo significari sacrum, quo etiam leges sacrae Oscae dicuntur, et in omnibus fere antiquis commentariis scribitur Opicum pro Obsco, ut in Titini fabula quinta: Qui Obsce et Volsce fabulantur, nam Latine nesciunt. A quo etiam verba impudentia, et elata appellantur obscena, quia frequentissimus fuit usus Oscis libidinum spurcarum.” (Obscum has two different and contrary meanings. For Cloatius considers sacred to be signified by the word, in which sense sacred laws are spoken of as leges Oscae (Oscan laws), and in almost all the old commentaries Opicum is written for Obscum, as in the fifth Fable of Titinius: “Who converse in Obscan and Volscian, because they know not how in Latin.” Whence also indecent words, and swelling ones, are called obscene, because the practice of unclean lusts was most frequent among the Oscans[120].)

Again on p. 194., “Oscos, quos dicimus, ait Verrius Opscos ante dictos, teste Ennio, cum dicat: De muris res gerit Opscus. Adiicit etiam, quod stupra inconcessae libidinis obscena dicantur, ab eius gentis consuetudine inducta. Quod verum esse non satis adducor, cum apud antiquos omnes fere obscena dicta sint, quae mali ominis habebantur.” (The Oscans, as we call them, Verrius says were formerly called Opscans, on the evidence of Ennius, for he says: “The Opscan directs his attack upon the walls.” He adds further that debaucheries of lawless love are called “obscene”, as taking this name from the habits of the nation in question. But I am not sufficiently convinced of the truth of this, inasmuch as in nearly all the ancient writers things are called obscene that were held to be of evil omen). However what the spurca libido (unclean lust) consisted in may be readily conjectured from the following explanations of Festus: Oscines aves Appius Claudius esse ait, quae ore canentes faciant auspicium, ut corvus[121], cornix, noctua, (Divinatory birds—Oscines aves—are, says Appius Claudius, such as give an augury by singing with the mouth, as the raven, the crow, the owl); if only we remember how the fellator, as was shown on a previous page, was nicknamed corvus (raven). Again in an Epigram of Ausonius already quoted a cunnilingue is called Opicus magister; so that we cannot doubt the question is here of that vice which is practised with the mouth.

In another Epigram of Ausonius quoted and explained above, where the different forms of the obscoena Venus (obscene Love) are specified, Crispa there mentioned practises,

Et quam Nolanis capitalis luxus inussit,

(That vice too which headlong wantonness branded on the men of Nola), and this capitalis luxus[122] of the men of Nola, as the general sense of the whole passage clearly shows, is nothing else but fellation. But the town of Nola was in Campania, and the inhabitants of Campania again consisted for the most part of Oscans; so whatever is true of the latter, must needs also apply to the Campanians. The Nolans and Oscans or Opicans being fellators and cunnilingues, the Campanians must be so too; and as a matter of fact Plautus (Trinum. II. 4. 144.) tells us: Campas genus multo Syrorum antidit patientia, (The Campanian race far outdoes that of the Syrians in passivity).

Now Messius being represented as an Oscan, and this by way of mockery, as all expounders admit, the point of the jest must evidently refer to this luxus capitalis, and Messius accordingly be regarded as a fellator. Now let us look if this view finds any confirmation in what follows[123]. First of all Sarmentus says Messius is equi feri similis (like an unbroken horse). Wherein precisely the satire of this consists is indeed somewhat doubtful, the commentators maintaining an obstinate silence on the point; but there must be some allusion of some sort intended. We can scarcely suppose this to be to the Hectoreus equus (the Hectorean stallion) of Ovid[124] or the equus supinus (the stallion lying supine) of Horace,—Sat. II. 7. 50.[125]. The unbroken horse is noticeable as galloping with head down between the fore-feet, a position taken, as we have already pointed out, by the cunnilingue, but which in accordance with the passage of Lucian quoted above can equally well be that of the fellator[126]. Messius must have understood the allusion, for he says, “Accipio”,—caput et movet, (“I accept”,—and moves his head). Sarmentus takes the movement as a threat, for he in his turn understands the equus ferus (wild horse) in yet another sense as aries (a ram)[127], and adds: If only your horn had not been amputated! What should make you threaten to butt, mutilus (mutilated)[128] as you are?

Now in explanation of what it was led Sarmentus to indulge in this jest, Horace goes on to say that Messius carried on the left side of his brow a hideous scar. At this Sarmentus directs his wit, making allusion to the Campanus morbus (Campanian disease) and Messius’disfigured face, finishing up by asking the latter pastorem saltaret uti Cyclopa (to dance the shepherd Cyclops), adding that for this he would need neither mask nor tragic buskins. But the Campanus morbus[129] is indeed nothing else but the capitalis luxus (headlong wantonness) of the Nolans, the peculiar vice of the Oscans, fellation in fact, which Messius practised, and to which he owed his foeda cicatrix (hideous scar), his disfigured face; and on both these points Sarmentus proceeds to rally him at great length (permulta iocatus,—indulging in very many jests), without Horace however recording his wit any further. In the pastorem Cyclopa saltare (to dance the shepherd Cyclops) again is contained an allusion that has hitherto been quite misunderstood, one which Lucian in his Pseudologistae (ch. 27.) will best explain for us. He says to Timarchus: “But in Italy, great gods! you acquired the heroic nickname of ὁ Κύκλωψ (the Cyclops), because at one time you wanted to practise your vice in imitation of the old legend, as it is found in Homer, and actually, as you lay there drunk, held the κισσύβιον (wassail-bowl) in your hand like a wanton Polyphemus; and the young man hired for the purpose with outstretched hasta (spear), that was well sharpened, threw himself upon you like another Odysseus, to thrust out your eye[130].

Yet did he miss his aim, and the spear turned slantwise beside you;

So that its point sped past, the edge of your chin merely grazing.

Thus it is by no means unreasonable to speak of you as using “cold-mouthed phrases” (Ψυχρολογεῖν). But you, Cyclops, opening your mouth, and gaping as wide as mortal man can, had your cheeks plugged by him, or better you longed, as Charybdis with the ships was fain to swallow down helm and sail and all, you longed to absorb the whole Οὖτις (No-man).”

Finally the nickname Messius bears, Cicirrus or Cicerrus, would seem to embody a jesting allusion, as it was no doubt given him on account of his throaty, croaking voice. It signifies the same thing as κερκίδες (hawks) in Dio Chrysostom, and like that word is to be derived from κέρχω (to croak)[131].

The Morbus Phoeniceus (Phoenician disease) was not, as we have seen, elephantiasis at all, and neither was the Morbus Campanus (Campanian disease) mentagra. But just as elephantiasis might supervene as a consequence of Morbus Phoeniceus, so the foeda cicatrix (hideous scar), a mark left behind it by a previous malady, was a consequence of the Morbus Campanus. Now what was the nature of this malady that the mark it left behind showed as a foeda cicatrix, is precisely what we would wish to determine. The Commentators all take the cornu exsectum (a horn amputated) as giving the explanation, though this is by no means absolutely necessary according to the general drift of the passage as explained; and Sarmentus might perfectly well under these circumstances, arguing from the presence of a scar, assume or at any rate profess to assume as the cause from which this had originated, the previous existence of a horny excrescence, without the latter as an actual matter of fact having ever had any previous existence. To us at any rate the cornu exsectum appears to stand in only a remote connection with the foeda cicatrix, which was no doubt later on made the subject of manifold further witticisms; only Horace has given us no more details about the matter, either because they had entirely escaped his memory, or possibly because he had not perfectly grasped the point of these jokes. Certainly the conspicuously placed at (but) seems to point to a distinction of what follows from what precedes—unless indeed it is so placed merely to mark the transition from the oratio directa to the oratio indirecta.

However, granted there actually was an excrescence previously existing, which had been removed by the knife, of what nature was the said excrescence? It is scarcely possible, with Heindorf, to suppose the Satyriasis of Aristotle[132] to be intended here; with much greater probability Schneider in his Greek Dictionary, under the word διονυσιακὸς (Dionysiac, connected with Dionysus) drew attention to the definition of Galen (edit. Kühn XIX. p. 443.): διονυσίσκοι εἰσὶν ὀστώδεις ὑπεροχαὶ ἐγγὺς κροτάφων γιγνόμεναι. λέγονται δὲ κέρατα ἀπὸ τῶν κερασφορούντων ζάων κεκλημένα. (διονυσίσκοι are bony excrescences growing near the temples, and they are called horns, so named from the animals that carry horns). A passage of Heliodorus (Cocchi Ant., Graecorum chirurgici libri, e collect. Nicetae Florent. 1754. fol., p. 125.) which Oribasius, De fracturis, has preserved, gives a slightly different account; it reads: Ὀστώδης ἐπίφυσις ἐν παντὶ μὲν γίγνεται μέρει τοῦ σώματος, πλεοναζόντως δὲ ἐν τῇ κεφαλῇ, μάλιστα δὲ πλησίον τῶν κροτάφων· Ὅταν δὲ δύο ἐπιφύσεις γένωνται πλησιάζουσαι τοῖς κροτάφοις, κέρατα ταῦτα τινες εἴωθασιν ὀνομάζειν, ἔνιοι δὲ διονυσιακοὺς τοὺς οὕτω πεπονθότας ἀνθρώπους προσηγόρευσαν. (Bony outgrowth may occur in every part of the body, but pre-eminently on the head, and particularly near the temples. But when there are two such growths in the neighbourhood of the temples, some are wont to call them horns, but others name the patients so afflicted διονυσιακοὶ). Then follows the description of the outgrowth, and the method of its removal by excision. On this passage Cocchi found an old marginal gloss from the hand of Nicotas (?), κέρατα μὲν λέγεται ἀπὸ τῆς τῶν κεράτων ἐκφύσεως, τῶν γιγνομένων τοῖς ἀλόγοις ζώοις. Διονυσιακοὺς δὲ αὐτοὺς προσαγορεύουσιν, ἀπὸ τῆς πρὸς τὸν θεὸν ἐμφερείας ὡς αὐτός φησιν ἐν τοῖς χειρουργουμένοις,—(they are called horns from the growth of the horns that appear on the lower animals. And they name them διονυσιακοὶ from the likeness to the god Dionysus, as he says himself, in the carved figures),—which on the whole confirms the statement of Heliodorus, though he (Cocchi) prefers, following this indication, to emend the passage of Galen also so as to read, διονυσιακοί, οἷς ὀστώδεις ὑπεροχαὶ ἐγγὺς κροτάφων γίγνονται, (Dionysiaci, so they are called, i.e. those in whom bony excrescences grow near the temples). This much, that we should read διονυσιακοὶ for διονυσίσκοι, is evident, but whether the rest of the emendations are to be accepted may well be open to doubt, as the second clause of the sentence, “and they are called κέρατα (horns), so named from the animals that carry horns”, obviously implies that the term διονυσιακοὶ is used in reference not to the individual, but to the outgrowth. Schneider indeed agrees with the emendation of Cocchi, but has in error put Sarmentus in the place of Messius.

Now supposing the latter has actually had an earlier bony outgrowth, it is not exactly evident why after its skilful removal a foeda cicatrix (hideous scar) should have remained,—if indeed we do not prefer to regard the foedus (hideous, foul) as perhaps pointing to the cause that had occasioned the outgrowth in question. In that case it would certainly be interesting to see thus referred to the vice of the fellator affections of the bones carrying the same meaning as our own tophi (concretions on the bone in gouty affections). But in all probability it was merely cutaneous tubercles that had been removed by surgical means, the actual cautery or the knife, and these, as is invariably their nature to do, had left behind an ugly scar. Thus Messius would seem to have resembled Calvus tuberossimae frontis (with brow most thickly covered with tubercles) in Petronius (ch. 15.) and the face represented on a gem, of which a delineation is said to be found in Corius’ Museum Etruriae Plate II. fig. 3.,—a work we have been unable to procure. But enough of the Morbus Campanus[133]!

Sodomy, or Bestiality.
§ 27.

In the various forms of vice hitherto considered we have seen mankind approximating more and more closely to the animal and putting himself to a greater or less degree on the same footing; now we behold him in Sodomy[134] sinking finally far below the level of the animal, renouncing not merely the human but even the animal nature, in virtue of which he has been able so far to call himself at lowest a member of the species. So it is with complete justice that Plutarch[135] says: “At gallus si gallum conscendat absente gallina, vivus comburitur, aruspice aliquo pronuntiante grave atroxque id esse ostentum. Ita ipsi homines hoc confessi sunt, castitate a brutis se superari, eaque naturae vim non facere voluptatum percipiendarum causa. Vestras libidines natura, quamquam legis auxilio fulta, tamen intra suos non potest coercere fines: quin eae instar fluvii exundantes atrocem foeditatem, tumultum confusionemque naturae gignant in re venerea. Nam et capras, porcas, equas iniverunt viri, et feminae insano mascularum bestiarum amore exarserunt. Ex huiusmodi enim coitibus vobis sunt Minotauri, Silvani seu Aegipanes atque (ut mea fert sententia) etiam Sphinges et Centauri nati[136]. Enimvero fame coactus canis aut avis aliquando cadavere humano vescitur; ad coitum nullus unquam est homo a bestia sollicitatus, bestias vero cum ad hanc, tum ad alias voluptates vos vi trahitis ac contra jus usurpatis.” (But if the cock tread the cock in the absence of the hen, he is burned alive, any augur pronouncing this to be a serious and sinister prodigy. Thus men have themselves admitted that they are surpassed by brutes in chastity, and that the latter do not do violence to nature with a view to the gratification of their desires. Whereas your lusts nature cannot, though seconded by the aid of law, restrain within their due bounds, or stay them from overflowing like a river in flood and producing horrid abominations, a wild cataclysm and confusion of nature in matters of love. For men have had intercourse with she-goats and sows and mares, while women have been inflamed with mad love of male beasts. Indeed it is from such unions that your Minotaurs have been engendered, and Silvani or Aegipans, and—as I suppose,—the Sphinxes too and Centaurs[136]. True under compulsion of hunger, dog and bird sometimes feed on a human corpse; but no man has ever been invited to coition by any beast, though you constrain beasts by force to this as well as to other shameful pleasures, and use them contrary to all right).

Like all other forms of vicious lust, Sodomy too was an outcome of Asiatic[137] and Egyptian luxury, and already in quite early times familiar in those regions,—in fact, as is the case with sexual excesses generally, this vice appears to have developed from the religious cult of the countries named. Among the Egyptians[138] at any rate we meet with Mendes, the sacred Goat or Pan, worshipped by means of Sodomy on the part of his female devotees, who were shut up along with him.

Boettiger[139] goes so far as to conjecture that the tame snakes in the temple of Aesculapius, which were also kept in private houses[140] as a plaything of the women, were trained and employed by them for purposes of Sodomy. In confirmation a passage is brought forward in this connection by Forberg, loco citato, p. 368, from Suetonius[141], in which the mother of Augustus, Atia, is spoken of: “In Asclepiadis Mendetis Θεολογουμένων libris lego, Atiam cum ad sollemne Apollinis sacrum media nocte venisset, posita in templo lectica, dum ceterae matronae dormirent, obdormisse; draconem repente irrepsisse ad eam paulloque post egressum: illamque expergefactam quasi a concubitu mariti purificasse se et statim in corpore eius exstitisse maculam, velut depicti draconis, nec potuisse unquam eximi, adeo ut mox publicis balneis perpetuo abstinuerit”[142]. (In the books of the Theologoumena (sacred writings) of the Asclepiad Mendes I read how Atia, who had come to the wonted festival of Apollo at midnight, when her litter had been set down in the Temple, and the other matrons were sleeping, herself fell asleep; how a snake suddenly crept in to her, and presently emerged again; and how on waking she purified herself as after intercourse with her husband, and immediately there appeared a mark on her body, representing the likeness of a snake, which could never be got rid of, so much so that soon she left off ever after frequenting the public baths).

However the Roman women seem to have especially made use of the ass[143] for the satisfaction of their nymphomania, an animal that was famed in Antiquity for its salaciousness.

That under such circumstances the women’s genitals, and the men’s no less, were exposed to many sorts of injury, may be readily supposed; though we have sought in vain so far for any direct evidence of the fact. So we may perhaps be allowed to quote here an observation originating with Abu Oseibah, De vitis medicorum illustrium, (On the Lives of Famous Physicians), according to Reiske[144]. This properly speaking belongs to a later period chronologically, but it is pertinent in the present connection. Reiske says: “Caput XIII. habet observationem—2. de ingenti penis inflammatione, quae nata fuerat ex impuro cum bestia concubitu, cum coruncula urethram obstruente, sanata modo prorsum empirico atque crudeli. Impositum glabro lapidi penem medicus subito praeter aegri expectationem, qua poterat vi percutiebat manu in pugnum coacta, ut obturaculum et ulcus dissiliret. Sapit hic casus luem veneream; et posset inservire illis pro argumento, qui morbum hunc etiam veteribus cognitum fuisse contendunt. Cadit autem is casus circa annum Christi 940.” (Chapter XIII contains the following observation,—2. Of a violent inflammation of the penis, which had originated in unclean intercourse with a beast, with a coruncle, or knot, constricting the urethra, cured in a manner to the last degree empirical and cruel. The penis being laid on a rough stone, the Physician suddenly when the patient was not expecting it, struck it as heavily as ever he could with his doubled fist, so that the stoppage and ulcer might burst. This case has a smack of the Venereal disease about it; and might serve as an argument for those who hold that this disease was known to the Ancients as well. But the case falls about the year of Our Lord 940.)

[Climate.]
§ 28.

Now that we have made ourselves acquainted with the various use to which the Ancients put the genital organs, we are confronted inevitably with the question,—how were the genitals themselves affected by it all? Impossible to suppose they can have preserved their integrity absolutely intact, while at the same time such parts as were substituted in use for the one or the other form of them, were exposed,—as is abundantly proved by the different diseases described, diseases affecting the pathic, the fellator and the cunnilingue respectively,—to manifold complaints, and very often had to pay severely for the misuse to which they were put. Granting that the unnatural use of the mouth and the rectum must necessarily have endangered those parts specifically more than the penis, an organ particularly adapted and intended for friction, still this will by no means imply the entire immunity of the latter from ill effects. Indeed the fact of such immunity is sufficiently disproved by the passages quoted specifically under paederastia, without taking into account at all the large number of actual maladies of the genitals that are mentioned by professional and non-professional writers of Antiquity. With some of these we have already made acquaintance,—maladies which no one would for a moment think of ascribing exclusively to the practice of the vice of paederastia.

Accordingly we must look for other factors, which being in part unconnected with the use of the genitals, are not like this to be regarded as an immediately efficient cause, but rather as predisposing circumstances, exercising from the first an independent influence on the normal condition of those organs. For mere use or misuse cannot possibly be taken as in itself a sufficient reason to account for disease, even though the Ancients may have looked upon complaints of the genitals partly as a direct consequence of illicita Venus (unlawful Love), or in other words as it were a result of the vengeance of outraged Nature. The genitals, like all organs of the human body, exhibit over and above their functional activity on behalf of the general organism and its reproduction, evidences also of an independent activity directed towards the maintenance of their own integrity and individual existence,—and these are bound to differ more or less according to difference of locality and difference of time, as indeed may be predicated of the organism as a whole, if we trust the indications it gives.

Now this differentiation according to locality is conditioned above all else by climate; hence the question we have now first of all to answer is this: what influence did climate manifest in Ancient times on the activity of the genital organs in general and in particular? and, to what extent may a factor favourable to the rise of affections of the genitals be deduced from it? True, direct information on the point has so far reached us only sparingly, still such as we have is enough to justify a general view on the whole question, especially if we reinforce it with the results of more recent observation,—always provided this be done with proper precaution, for we sometimes find the Ancients commending the climate of a particular country as being exceedingly healthy, whereas in more modern times exactly the opposite is noted. As the evidence extant and available extends only to Asia, and in particular Syria, Palestine and Asia Minor, to Egypt, Greece and Italy, there can for the present be no question except as to the climate of these countries.

Next as to the influence of sexual activity in general, Hippocrates[145] himself tells us, after discussing the climate of Asia: “But ἡδονή (pleasure) must necessarily predominate (among them), and this is why among animals so many varieties are found; and I suppose this to be equally true in the case of the Egyptians and Lydians also.” Of course ἡδονή in this passage signifies concupiscence in particular;—no special proof is needed of this. As a matter of fact we observe at the present day how in hot climates, where the whole vegetative life presents a luxuriant character, and all Nature appears to feel the procreative impulse unceasingly, man too falls in with the universal stress and strain of each species to maintain its foothold. Yet as this must inevitably be done at the expense of the individual life, we see the effort very frequently resulting in the production of barren or sexless blossoms, and not fruit at all. The son of the South is like a tree growing in rich, rank soil; he ripens betimes to the sexual life, but equally early is constrained to abandon it again. The youthful imagination springs up in its fresh quick activity, while the body withers concurrently, and stung by lust,—lust that is yet further exaggerated by the misuse of aphrodisiacs, at last has nothing left but to drag out an invalid existence, finding a morbid gratification in the artificial ways and means whereby imagination, sickened and debauched by its own extravagances, seeks to supply from extraneous sources the failing titillation of desire the organ craves. No better confirmation of all this can be found than what is supplied already in our investigations as so far conducted.

We saw how in Asia lust and its abominable brood arose and extended thence over neighbouring lands, and how the rhythmic rites of the Venus ebria (drunken Venus) could indeed refine, but hardly increase their excesses. Babylon, Syria and Egypt were the nurseries of licentiousness, finding only at Rome a really self-taught and competent rival. The clear sky of Greece could cover only inhabitants of corresponding character in body and mind, and none but a Greek was capable of setting up the ideal, and verifying it in practice, of a fair soul in a fair body. Deep as the Greek may have sunk in degradation after the fall of national liberty and under foreign influence, and though unbridled lust may have often mastered individuals, it never dominated the nation as a whole, it was artificially brought into existence and was never dependent on climate. Even at Rome, colossal as was the scale on which vice manifested itself, it ever remained but a foreign importation, for which foreign wantons had first paved the way at a period when the climate of Asia exerted a more immediate influence there than that of Greece.

Like licentiousness in general, Polygamy also, in part owing its existence to it as it does, was a consequence of the Asiatic climate; but how far it may be fairly held to have influenced the rise of Venereal disease, we do not as yet venture to decide; we feel constrained to keep this point over for later investigations. The same applies to Polyandry,—in its strict sense, when we regard it as a form of marriage; though of course over and above this it comes into connection with vice, inasmuch as every prostitute lives in a state of Polyandry, as does every amateur of the sex in one of Polygamy. Under these circumstances affections of the genitals cannot but arise among persons otherwise healthy, as every Physician of large practice can verify by examples, and as experiments on animals have sufficiently demonstrated to be the case[146]. Nevertheless these hints, for we cannot and ought not to look upon them as anything more than hints, as any more complete discussion would carry us too far a-field for our present purpose,—may very well suffice to recall to the reader’s memory the influence exerted by climate on the genital functions, especially as adequate proofs in confirmation of all this are comprised in our preceding Sections.

§ 29.

Far more important in view of our immediate object is the influence exerted by Climate on the individual activity of the genital organs, and here again we have in the first place to fix our eyes on Asia and Egypt. The burning rays of the sun to which these regions and their inhabitants are exposed, increase in a marked way the activity of the skin, and of course in the same proportion do the secretions from the mucous surfaces become less in quantity, but their product more highly charged in quality. Then, this being the case, a certain acridity or corroding quality of the secretion is readily set up, often making itself noticeable by a characteristic smell. This same influence must equally manifest itself in the mucous membrane of the inner parts of the genitals, and vaginal mucus accordingly acquire an acrid quality[147], if it is not removed pretty frequently from the surface of the membrane, and becoming as it were rancid, exert a corrosive effect on everything it comes in contact with[148].

Now shortly before as well as shortly after the commencement of menstruation the secretion of mucus in the genitals is increased, and thus the menstrual blood, having in any case a tendency to decomposition, will mingle with this acrid, strong-smelling mucous discharge, and in this way assume a foul, acrid character itself[149]. This is the origin of the ill repute into which menstrual blood, and this especially in hot climates, has fallen from the earliest times onwards, for no doubt the virulent qualities alleged against it really belong to it solely and entirely as a result of the admixture with it of this vaginal mucus. Sea-water and fresh river-water are each of them separately innocuous for health, but mix them together so as to make brackish water, and the exhalations given off become highly detrimental!

A similar state of things exists also in connection with the male genital organs. The surface of the glans penis, where it lies contiguous to the external skin, exhibits along with the latter an increased secretion from the sebaceous follicles[150], the discharge from which, if it is allowed to remain any length of time between the prepuce and the glans[151], likewise acquires an acrid quality; then re-acting on these parts, sets up an inflammatory condition of the aforesaid sebaceous follicles. “In fact”, says Niebuhr[152] “the Medical Officer of the English at Haleb (Russel) ascertained that in hot countries more copious humours collect about the glans penis than in cold; and a friend of mine in India, who in that hot climate had employed only the ordinary European precautions to ensure cleanliness, got a sort of ulcers on the glans, an inconvenience he would have been much more likely to escape, had he been circumcised. Subsequently he always washed this part of his person very carefully, and from that time forth experienced no trace of a recurrence of the trouble. Washing the whole body and particularly the privates is an absolute necessity in hot countries; and it is perhaps for this reason that the religious founders of the Jews, the Mohammedans, the Fire-Worshippers, the Heathen in India, etc., have commanded the observation of this practice.”

In close accord with this is the story Flavius Josephus[153] relates of Apion the Egyptian: “Wherefore it appears to me Apion deservedly paid a fitting penalty for his scorn of ancestral customs; for only when forced by necessity was he circumcised, ulceration having been set up about his privates (his glans penis); and as a matter of fact the circumcision proved vain, for gangrene supervened, and he died in terrible pain.” Again the passage just quoted will also afford a clear understanding of the following from Philo[154]:

“Therefore were it more becoming, quitting childish and frivolous mockery altogether, intelligently and earnestly to investigate the causes in which this custom (Circumcision) originated, rather than to accuse whole nations of folly in a spirit of mere prejudice. It certainly does not seem probable to an intelligent enquirer, approaching the question in this mood, that so many thousands of folk in every age should have been circumcised without a sufficient cause, submitting to great pain merely to mutilate their own and their children’s bodies. On the other hand there are many inducements to adopt outright and follow up the custom of our forefathers; and in an especial degree the four following. First, the prevention of a virulent disease and one very difficult to cure. This is known as Anthrax,—a denomination derived, as I suppose, from the ardent (fierce) burning (ἀπὸ τοῦ καίειν ἐντυφόμενον) that accompanies it, and readily arises in such as have the foreskin intact. Secondly, to secure that purity of the whole person obligatory upon the Priestly caste. Whence it comes that the Priests in Egypt also scrupulously shave the whole body; for there is something collects and is deposited underneath the hair as well as under the foreskin, that must be removed.”

From a comparison of these two passages from Niebuhr and from Philo respectively it may be gathered that the anthrax disease above mentioned did not in any way owe its rise to a specifically syphilitic origin, as has been now and again assumed by different enquirers. What we really learn from them is to recognize the liability of the sebaceous follicles of the glans penis to lapse into a condition of ulceration. True this tendency can be minimised to some extent by circumcision, as well as by unremitting care to secure cleanliness; yet it can never be completely removed, conditioned as it really is by climatic influences that do not admit of elimination. When once the corroding vaginal mucus of the woman, particularly in combination with the menstrual blood with its readiness to undergo putrefaction[155] re-acting on the mucous membrane, has set up sores and ulcers, then follows as a necessary consequence a still more dangerous mixture of matter and mucus. Next when under these conditions the man’s glans, possessing as it does an equally great liability in its cutaneous glands to be attacked by ulceration, enters in coition a vagina in this state, it cannot occasion much surprise if blennorhoea of the urethra or ulceration of the glans penis supervene[156], especially if we consider the fact that the act of coition sets the organs concerned in enhanced activity, making them more susceptible than ever to external injurious irritations. This is yet more likely to be the case, as concurrently a large amount of secretion is yielded by the morbidly affected mucous surface of the vagina, and very possibly this secretion undergoes under the influence of nervous excitation (as the saliva does under the influence of anger) some vital-chemical, contagious alteration of composition. Again supposing the woman to be at the time of coition actually in menstruation, a period when her genital organs are ipso facto roused to a condition of exaggerated activity, the disturbance must be yet greater, and the mischief resulting even more manifest.

This will in part account for the fact that ulcers on the genitals, brought about by coition, are so ready in Asia to assume a putrid character, and show that the Ancients had good reason to designate them by the name ἄνθραξ (anthrax, malignant pustule). For that ἄνθραξ was actually a consequence of coition we may see from a passage, already cited by Hensler and Simon, from Bishop Palladius[157], who relates of a certain Hero, how the Demon led him to Alexandria, how he there visited theatres and horse-races, and roamed round the taverns. “And thus, being by this time a glutton and a drunkard, he fell moreover into the mire of lust after women; and being now set upon sinning, he lived with a certain actress, (and had carnal intercourse with her?). Then when he had done all this, by a (Divine) providence he got an “anthrax” on the glans penis; and was so sick for six months that his (private) parts rotted away and dropped off of themselves. But subsequently recovering and getting off with the loss of these members, coming to a knowledge of God and a remembrance of the heavenly kingdom, and after confessing all that had befallen him, he fell asleep a few days afterwards, without having had the time to manifest works (of repentance).” In spite of the difficulties some of the expressions in the text exhibit, the main fact is perfectly plain, and admits of no doubt whatever, viz. that Hero had brought the ἄνθραξ on himself by carnal intercourse with an actress, and the moral reflections Palladius tags on to it cannot invalidate the fact. The objections Astruc raises against the conclusiveness of the passage have already been refuted by Hensler (Geschichte der Lustseuche,—History of Venereal Disease, I. pp. 317 sqq.), who while citing as parallel instances the passages adduced by Becket from the early XVth Century, very justly remarks: “What proof would they have, if this is not conclusive?”

Did the female genitals perhaps receive the names ἐσχάρα (scab) and ἄνθραξ (malignant pustule), because they very often made men a present of these things?!

In any case it is an interesting fact that to this day in India anthrax and chancrous ulcers are looked upon as akin, and both according to Sir William Jones (Asiatic Researches Vol. II.) are known by the name Nar Farsi or Ateshi Farsi (Ignis Persicus—Persian Fire) to the Cabirajas or Indian physicians. Now if we think of the great care taken by the Jews to ensure the multiplication of their race, the readiness with which various forms of ulceration pass over into mortification in hot localities,—as is shown by the examples of Apion and Hero,—and consequently the serious liability of the organs of generation to be destroyed, it will occasion less surprise when we read among the laws of Moses[158] the following injunction: “And if a man shall lie with a woman having her sickness, and shall uncover her nakedness; he hath discovered her fountain, and she hath uncovered the fountain of her blood; and both of them shall be cut off from among their people.” Surely great and serious resulting injuries must in no inconsiderable number of instances have been before his eyes for a Lawgiver to feel himself constrained to assign the death penalty to the act of coition with women during menstruation,—and this in spite of the fact that he had already in a general way declared the woman at this time, as well as everything she touched, to be unclean. Again on the other hand coition with women in this condition must with the Jews have been amongst things practised with more than ordinary frequency, if only such an extreme punishment availed to check it; and so we cannot really be surprised to find that the Holy Books of that Nation perhaps earlier than the writings of any other People were acquainted only too well with diseases of the genital organs acquired by coition. The particular disease that broke out in consequence of the worship of Baal-Peor has been discussed above in §§ 8 and 9; while the fact that the Mosaic books contain the first traces of a knowledge of Gonorrhoea has long been regarded as proved beyond a doubt[159].

If the Climate already exerted such an influence on the aboriginal inhabitants, how much greater must this have been where foreigners were concerned, on whom all endemic excitants of disease in a country notoriously work with augmented virulence. In Antiquity this fact must have been even more conspicuously true, inasmuch as at that period the Nations still remained much more unmixed than they subsequently became. It is a thing which always hitherto, speaking generally, has been far too little taken account of by Pathologists, but which is surely of vast importance in connection with the rise and spread of Venereal disease,—without its being in any way implied that we must necessarily therefore adopt the theory of its American origin[160]. If we are not much mistaken, this factor was operative also in the case of the Plague of Baal-Peor. Now what holds good for the Jews, must equally hold good for the other peoples of Asia and of Egypt, and even in an enhanced degree, since these, as we have seen above, gave way to vicious indulgence to a yet more excessive degree.

Nevertheless, then as now distinctions no doubt existed, and probably in Antiquity as at the present day there were districts, whose physical conditions of climate might be regarded as actually forming a counteracting factor, and where in spite of excesses the genital organs seldom became diseased. The evidence for this must be given by later investigations, for we must of necessity first possess a geographical Nosology of Venereal disease at the present day, if we are ever to succeed in finding and utilizing the materials for the same in Antiquity. What has been so far collected by the meritorious Schnurrer in his Geographical Nosology is too incomplete to justify us at present in drawing any certain conclusions, more particularly as the greatest part of the material contributed by him is drawn from the communications of non-medical enquirers.

The climate of Greece neither exercised any pre-eminently stimulating effect on the sexual activity of the genitals, nor yet did it afford a ground for the enhancement of their individual activity. Thus enjoying as it did in consequence of that happy combination of its seasons justly celebrated by ancient Writers[161] the advantages, without the disadvantages, of the Tropics, and its inhabitants possessing all functions in a more vigorous proportion, the climate could not possibly have been directly favourable to the rise of affections of the genitals; and for this reason made unnecessary all precautionary measures aimed at them, such as were required in Asia. Italy exhibits but little analogy with the Greek climate; still it cannot certainly without considerable qualification be reckoned among factors favourable to maladies of the genital organs. From this we may at any rate partly explain why the physicians of Greece and Rome give so little satisfactory information on the diseases in question, though indeed, as we shall see presently, in this case other and quite distinct factors were at work.

§ 30.

We have now seen that Climate is ipso facto an important factor favourable to the rise of affections of the genital organs. How much more powerful an influence must it exert on such affections when already in existence. Thus the question, what influence did Climate manifest in Antiquity on the character and course of affections of the genitals, is one of the utmost moment in connection with a History of Venereal disease,—the more so as on a correct answer being given to it depends the correctness of our views as to the form taken in such cases by the morbid process in Ancient times. True such a question presupposes the existence of these affections, and ought therefore, strictly speaking, only to be raised after the conclusion of our present investigations. However we think enough evidence has already been adduced in the preceding pages to remove all possible doubt from the mind of an attentive reader as to such being the case. Besides, this appears to us the more convenient course,—to survey in its entirety the influence exerted by Climate, rather than to take up our investigation of the subject afresh in different places, and thus to a greater or less extent mangle the discussion of it.

Preponderance of the vegetative principle combined with a certain slackness of tissue is the character of all organisms coming under the influence of the climate of Southern lands. In these countries an extra-ordinary stimulus acts on the mucous membrane of the genitals, and the character described will find its expression here also. Reaction will proceed not so much from the arterial side, or show itself under the guise of sthenic inflammation, but rather take the form merely of intensified secretion. What this increased secretion aims at is the removal of the abnormal stimulus, and the flow of mucus so originating manifests itself as simple, so to speak merely catarrhal, blennorrhoea. This, where the atmosphere is not impregnated with moist vapours, readily disappears, if only somewhat greater care is bestowed on the maintenance of cleanliness,—and all the more so, as re-absorption, which in hot climates acts vigorously on all the mucous membranes generally, very soon gets the upper hand again in the case of that of the genital organs, seconded as it is by the activity of the external skin. The latter is always in a condition of enhanced action at the same time, while the extent of its surface of course markedly exceeds that of the mucous membrane of the genitals. On the other hand where the atmosphere is especially moist, the activity of the skin, as well as the process of re-absorption internally, appears to be less; and so under these circumstances the mucous flow will assume more of a chronic character, but at the same time to an even greater degree be free from inflammatory reaction.

All the more recent observations agree in one thing, viz. that in Southern countries the gonorrhoeal forms predominate, and speaking generally, almost always run a mild course that hardly calls for medical interference. There is no doubt Climatic conditions in Antiquity differed but little from those of to-day; so that we may safely assume that equally in Ancient times blennorrhoea showed the same general characteristics, a fact which existing traditions moreover prove beyond question. The frequency of blennorrhoea of the genital organs in Antiquity is shown at once by the just quoted passage from the Mosaic Books, while its mildness of character may be gathered amongst other things from the remedies employed by the old Physicians, who almost without exception followed the principle laid down by Celsus (VI. 18.), to treat gonorrhoea levibus medicamentis (with gentle remedial measures), if they were called upon to apply treatment at all. At least this is true of acute blennorrhoea; the chronic form of the complaint, with which alone as a general rule they had to do, of course required astringents. No doubt each failure of arterial reaction afforded yet another reason for the belief on the part of the Ancients that gonorrhoea was a result of weakness of the seed-secreting vessels, and their idea that the discharge was merely badly prepared semen. Supposing, as must have happened, that marks of increased activity appeared, these proceeded not so much from the circulatory system at all as from the nerves, and Galen[162] was correct in referring Priapism under these conditions to spasmodic convulsion.

So much for mucous discharge. It was the same also with the various forms of ulceration of the genitals. The conditions to be enumerated presently in the next Section were already present to counteract their rise in any considerable proportion. Further, if they did appear in the high lands of Asia and in Upper Egypt more frequently than did blennorhoea,—this much is shown plainly at any rate by present-day experience,—still they lasted but a short time, as the preponderant activity of vegetative growth, seconded by extraneous assistance, soon mastered the disease, and quickly restored again the loss of tissue. The course of events was otherwise indeed on lower levels, as in Syria and Lower Egypt, districts which besides their high temperature also showed a considerable degree of moisture in the atmosphere and soil. Here accordingly the different forms of ulceration, unless careful precautions were taken, assumed a malignant character, and readily passed over into gangrene (ἄνθραξ), as we saw a little above happened in the cases of Apion and Hero. By this means it is true every specific characteristic of the morbid alteration was annihilated; but this only made the risk to the individual so much the greater, the patient being at best only too apt to lose the organ attacked

Again, though sometimes the part escaped destruction by gangrene, even then its cure was often difficult owing to the fact that, where the malady had been neglected, worms made their appearance in the ulcers[163], and set up so profuse and so far spreading a suppuration that the patient eventually succumbed to it. Of this we have an example in the Emperor Galerius Maximianus, mentioned by Eusebius[164], and to which allusion is made as early as in the Book of Ecclesiasticus (XIX. 2, 3.), when the Author, Jesus the son of Sirach, says: “Wine and women will make men of understanding to fall away: and he that cleaveth to harlots will become impudent. Moths (otherwise[165]—Rottenness and worms) shall have him to heritage, and a bold man shall be taken away.” The use of knife and actual cautery must naturally have played an important part under these circumstances in the treatment adopted; but these the patient often dreaded more than the malady itself, and chose suicide rather than submit to them, like the “Municeps” whose story Pliny tells in the passage quoted in a previous chapter. But now supposing suchlike ulcers to be situated in the mouth of a fellator or cunnilingue, then their course must have been all the more rapid, and the danger involved all the greater, if the patient lived in such a climate as described; and it was in this way the Αἰγύπτια καὶ Συριακὰ and Βουβαστικὰ ἕλκεα (Egyptian and Syrian sores, Bubastic sores) mentioned above acquired their evil repute. Still in the majority of cases these climatic influences could be counteracted by appropriate medical aid and dietetic measures, or at any rate their effect considerably reduced. Hence it was that cases of the sort only very rarely appeared in Antiquity, and for this very reason were noted by the Historians, when they did occur.

The human organism possessed in Southern lands yet another way of combating the enemy’s attacks, one which would seem to have escaped the notice of the Physicians of Antiquity, and which, though recognized in modern times, has yet never been at all adequately appreciated and utilized in the history of Venereal disease, viz. the reaction exhibited by the skin in diseases of the genital organs in hot climates. So long as authorities thought of the external skin as merely compacted of separate and distinct layers of tissue, there could not really be any question of an accurate knowledge of its functions whether under healthy or under morbid conditions. The investigations of Breschet and Roussel de Vauzène[166] as confirmed and reinforced by Gurlt[167], have now taught us to understand that the skin, over and above these layers, possesses as a matter of fact,—a fact formerly only conjectured,—special organs belonging to the same class as the glands, to wit the skin, hair and sweat glands. These share amongst them the function hitherto ascribed to the skin generally, and especially bring into correlation the sympathies of the different parts, so much so that they may be said to be almost the sole and only seat of the manifold forms of skin-diseases. All this we endeavoured first to demonstrate in the series of Articles on Skin-diseases in “Blasius’ Handwörterbuch der Chirurgie und Augenheilkunde” (Manual of Surgery and Ophthalmology), and so pave the way for a compendious Survey of our knowledge of the Skin-diseases up to the present time.

Now while the sweat-glands stand in a special connection of sympathy and antagonism with the lungs, the same correlation exists in a peculiar degree between the glands of the mucous membrane of the intestinal canal and of the genital organs on the one hand and the cutaneous glands on the other which secrete the sebum or sebaceous humour. It would take us too far a-field, if we undertook in this place to enter upon a detailed explanation of this circumstance, which however is still in sore need of further clearing up. We shall content ourselves with recalling the fact that Onanists (Masturbators) not only often betray themselves by having a nose with a shiny, tallowy looking surface that comes from excessive secretion of sebum, but also not less frequently by their face being covered with acne pustulus. One more fact we must mention is that the outbreak of acne very often with girls heralds the approach of each period of menstruation, and accompanies it[168]. These are signs clearly pointing to the conclusion that stimulations of the genitals are reflected back on the glands of the skin, for acne is nothing else but an affection of these glands, as we have demonstrated in the Work just mentioned.

But indeed there are proofs of this antagonism still nearer to hand. How frequently have our physicians observed an eruption[169] resembling roseola or urticaria in character, at the—very often sudden—appearance of which the gonorrhoeal symptoms have much decreased in severity or disappeared altogether! These skin affections have been ascribed to the balsam of Copaiva or the Cubebs pepper administered in these cases, which are supposed to have stimulated the intestinal mucous membrane and so sympathetically excited the skin. This may very possibly sometimes be the case; but it could not but occur much more frequently, if the remedial agents mentioned are to bear the sole and entire blame. No doubt in some patients a particular idiosyncrasy may have given rise to sympathetic action stimulative of the intestinal canal, but in the majority the reaction of the mucous membrane of the genitals on the cutaneous glands has undoubtedly been a chief contributory factor under epidemic influences, while the drugs exhibited have played only a subordinate part in producing the result. There are cases where the gonorrhœa has been treated simply and solely by mere antiphlogistic methods, and yet such an eruption has been observed.

But it is not in gonorrhœa only that these phænomena appear; they have been noted as well in chancre, being then ascribed to the sublimate of mercury and looked upon as affording a criterion that the drug had exercised its full effect on the original complaint. In most cases this was without doubt a mistake, for Biett, Rayer and other authorities have noted the most widely divergent forms of skin-disease to appear concurrently with the existence of chancre, and in consequence have come to regard them as primitive symptoms. In fact cases have actually been observed, where these were the sole primary symptoms of contagion after indulgence in unclean coition. At the same time it is only fair to say that this has been doubted in many quarters, observers trying to explain the fact of the absence of other symptoms by saying the ulcers, which are frequently very minute, may have been overlooked. At least experience has sufficiently taught us this much, that the so-called secondary symptoms, and therefore the skin-affections as well, appear the more readily in proportion as the ulcers of the genitals are smaller and more superficial; and we ourselves believe that never without local reaction on the genital organs from coition do so-called secondary appearances arise,—only it is not invariably ulcers that are to looked for.

Now when even in our temperate climate the cutaneous glands play a not unimportant part in the morbid processes of Venereal disease, how much more must this be the case in Asia and Egypt, where the activity of the skin generally and that of the cutaneous glands in particular is even under normal conditions far more conspicuously energetic, as may be seen from the constant oily state of the skin, more particularly in Negroes. This oily grease on the skin is in fact nothing more nor less than the product of the action of the cutaneous glands. These glands are peculiarly apt to become morbidly affected in travellers visiting the South during their acclimatisation; though natives too are yearly attacked in the Summer months by complaints of the skin-glands.[170] The fact has long been recognized[171] that in Southern countries not only the greater number of skin-diseases, but even Venereal disease itself in an especial degree, appear as an exanthema of the skin, and for this reason it there displays far less destructive effects; but as a rule enquirers have contented themselves with the general habit, without (as pointed out before) adequately turning the fact to advantage in connection with the History and Theory of Venereal disease.

This preponderating bias towards the external skin must obviously manifest itself equally in other diseases of the mucous membranes, and so too in those of the genital organs. Reabsorption in particular, acting with increased vigour on the mucous surfaces, will prove its beneficial presence also in the diseases affecting them. The foreign matter that comes in contact with these surfaces is assimilated to a less degree by the mucous glands and by those of the glans penis, and no time is allowed it to exert a destructive influence on the small surface receiving it; on the other hand it is quickly thrown back on the much more extensive surface of the external skin, and there dealt with by the cutaneous glands with their powerful secretive and assimilatory action, being either assimilated or expelled externally.

In particular localities this quickly happens without any striking symptoms being locally perceptible in the skin, as e.g. in Numidia, Libya[172] and the Northern part of Peru[173], where the disease is said to cure itself without extraneous medical aid, and among the inhabitants generally to be practically non-existent(?). Though this is not the case in other countries, still the cutaneous glands become involved in the morbid process of the disease, and secrete with augmented copiousness, and the secretion being simultaneously altered in character, it fails to be driven out externally, inasmuch as external elimination is at once stopped owing to the fact that the cutaneous glands, like the uterus in pregnancy, close their orifice, so as to be enabled to carry out their function in their recesses. For this reason the glands swell, and manifest themselves in the form of papillae or tubercles (very often as little bladders, or blebs), changing later either into pustules, if the morbid products are eventually expelled[174], or else gradually disappear, if the process of assimilation and re-absorption has been sufficiently vigorous. Supposing damp, cold or other unfavourable influences to be at work, suppuration may very well supervene, or degenerative processes commence, and so on, and the disease pass over into leprosy and elephantiasis. This is above all the case in Egypt, where from the first, chancres on the genitals would seem to possess a marked tendency towards scurfy and scabby formations[175].

If these are the facts at the present day,—and no one doubts they are,—there only remains the question: were they so in Ancient times as well? Here we come face to face with the difficult problem as to the relation of leprosy with Venereal disease,—a problem which for Centuries has been the subject of dispute, and in spite of the very careful enquiries of a Hensler and of other investigators, cannot by any means be regarded as solved. Our own investigations on the Leprosy of the Ancients are as yet too incomplete, and the nature of the subject demands such far-reaching inquisition into the most widely different individual phænomena, that we are compelled, in order to economise our space, to renounce all idea of submitting the subject to any more detailed examination in the present Work. Besides, in our Second Part we shall be coming back to it again, when we have under investigation the question as to whether or no the Venereal disease of the XVth Century was developed from leprosy.

For our present purpose the following statement must suffice: The Climate of Asia and Egypt was in Antiquity, as mentioned already, undoubtedly but little different from what it is to-day, and the influence it exerted therefore must have shared in this resemblance[176].

As to mentagra, we have already proved a little above that it was a consequence of the vice of the cunnilingue, and as according to Pliny’s report the latter claimed Egypt for its fatherland, obviously the climate of that country must have been in part responsible for its origination. Now affections of the genital organs being found in Antiquity as the result of sexual intercourse, it follows that in this direction also Climate must have exerted its influence, and that in the very same way as we have just above seen it do,—in other words manifold affections of the skin must have originated in consequence of irritation and other morbid effects on the genital organs. True the Ancient physicians say not a word of this; but then they derive the greater proportion of the skin-diseases, which they mass all together in the most admired confusion, from internal mischief of various sorts, and regard them all as apostases (suppurative inflammations carrying off the effect of fevers, etc.),—at any rate a proof they were not entirely unacquainted with the antagonistic relations existing between the skin and other organs.

So far as the genitals are concerned, they seem to have adequately realized only the consensus between the uterus and the skin[177], whereas in male subjects they appear to have put down most of the effects observed to the liver. But on these points we shall have something further to say later on. Still the assertion to the effect that Eunuchs are not attacked by calvities (baldness) (Hippocrates, I. 400; Galen, XVIII. A. 40., also p. 42., where mention is made of the excesses in Baccho et Venere—in Wine and Love—peculiarly prevalent at his epoch), which was a frequent consequence of vice in Antiquity[178], points to the consensus between genitals and skin having been already noted. Even more is the fact, vouched for by Archigenes[179], that castration was recommended by some Physicians as a cure for elephantiasis, such as to arouse the suspicion that the physicians of Antiquity knew perfectly well what influence affections of the genital organs exerted on diseases of the skin. This is made all the more likely by Archigenes (ch. 120.) not only speaking of the disease as being contagious, but also describing the skin-affection as secondary in character. He further declares its cause to be unknown, puts on record the extreme lubricity of the patients (Satyriasis pp. 74, 133, 269.), and even says in so many words that such as were castrated did not contract elephantiasis!

We have seen how mentagra attacked the cunnilingue, and afterwards passed over into psora; in just the same way might elephantiasis,—a complaint indeed which the Gloss of the Pseudo-Galen actually puts in connection with the Morbus Phoeniceus (Phoenician Disease),—be brought on by indulgence in coition. This is in no way contradicted by the preference the disease exhibits for first making its appearance in the face, inasmuch as the cutaneous glands of the face are in a relation of special sympathy with the genital organs. That leprosy too no less than elephantiasis was communicated and contracted by coition is shown by a host of examples given in the Mediæval Historians[180]; in fact, a large number of Physicians held Venereal disease to be a species of leprosy or elephantiasis, while some made it actually originate in the act of coition with leprous persons; yet for all that we do not, according to Hensler, (“Vom Aussatz”,—On Leprosy, p. 396.), find it anywhere recorded that the genital organs were first affected,—apart that is from what Astruc has brought forward on purpose to support his own view. As everybody knows, he refers all local evils existing prior to the end of the XVth Century to Leprosy.

But what would follow supposing traces were actually to be found proving that what was known in Asia as leprosy did as a matter of fact first show itself in the genitals? Before we enter upon the closer examination of reasons for this supposition, we must quote a passage from the Work of Von Roeser already several times mentioned, a passage equally important for the pathology of Venereal disease as for its History. Von Roeser, (p. 68.) writes thus: “Primary syphilis manifests itself in Egypt in the very rarest cases on the prepuce or glans of the verge; the chancres are more commonly found on the outer skin of the penis nearer the mons Veneris, or actually on this in the hairy parts which among Egyptians and Arabs are generally kept shaved, or else on the scrotum. Pruner[181] told me that the occurrence of a chancre on the prepuce, which indeed is absent in Mohammedans owing to circumcision, or on the glans penis is in the ratio of 1: 3 to chancres on the last mentioned parts, hence in that country Astruc’s opinion that syphilitic ulcers hardly ever formed on the exterior of the verge, is strongly contradicted,—as is no less true amongst ourselves. That circumcision is not the sole cause of this phænomenon is manifest from the fact that in Smyrna and Constantinople I saw plenty of chancres on the glans, as well as amongst Jews at home, though I am not going to deny that circumcision may have some share in causing the rarity of the appearance of a chancre on the glans,—but this does not in any way explain the frequency of their appearance on the scrotum and the mons Veneris. A tendency to take the exanthematic type, a tendency which makes itself known also by the fact of many chancres commonly appearing at once and showing in a marked degree a preference for scurfy and scabby forms, might very possibly afford a better explanation of the phænomenon in question.”

Now as to the supposition just expressed, this is based on a repeated examination of a passage of the very utmost importance in the history of leprosy, viz. Ch. XIII. of Leviticus—a chapter which has exercised Theologians no less than Physicians for Centuries, but without our being enabled to regard the investigations it has given rise to as in any way concluded. However it is no intention of ours to provide in this place a commentary on this Chapter, more particularly as we do not possess the philological acquirements necessary for a critical appreciation of the results so far obtained. Neither, speaking in general terms, has anything like sufficient progress in the study of original sources for the history of leprosy as yet been made to enable an adequate judgement to be formed; we much prefer to limit our efforts at present to contributing sundry observations, which stand in close connection with our immediate object, and at the same time may afford readers, whether scientific or philological authorities, an opportunity of favouring us with their judgement as specialists.

The correct understanding of the whole passage appears to us to depend in the first place on the success of the endeavour to find a certain and definite explanation of the expression בְּעוֹר בְּשָׂרוֹ (b’ôr b’sarô,—“skin of the flesh” in English Authorized Version). Luther rendered this by: on the skin of his flesh; the Septuagint translators give it as ἐν δέρματι χρωτὸς αὐτοῦ (in the skin of the surface); while de Wette (whose Translation of the passage generally we hereby ask the reader to consult, space not allowing us to quote the whole Chapter) translates it on the skin of his body, and understands by the expression every part of the external skin.

Supposing this translation the correct one, it will be a hard matter to explain how it was the hair should simultaneously have turned white, a circumstance which strangely enough caused even Hensler no surprise. Rosenmüller in his Scholia on the passage says: Schilling (De lepra p. 7.) observat, in lepra alba pilos albescere, (Schilling, On Leprosy p. 7. notes that in white leprosy the hair grows white); but it is only the partes pilosae aut capillatae (hairy parts, parts covered with long hair) that are here intended, and these are to be understood as including merely the head, eye-brows, chin, armpits and pubic region. Obviously the hair on other parts of the body cannot be taken here into consideration, as it is specifically almost colourless, and though it is true it may have had a stronger coloration in many Jews, surely they did not all belong to the race of Esau. Again all writers on leprosy, when this mischief affecting the hair is in question, speak solely of the hair of the parts named[182]. So when Haly Abbas in a passage quoted by Hensler (Excerpta p. 9.), in which he is treating of Allopitia and Tyria (forms of leprosy), says, Nonnunquam totius accidit pilis corporis (Sometimes this happens to all the hair of the body), this also is to be understood merely of the parts above named. Indeed Hensler himself (Vom Aussatz,—On Leprosy, p. 304.) assumes this when, after speaking of the hair of the head and beard, he goes on: “But this mischief may also attack other hairy parts of the body. Haly Abbas says, (Excerpta p. 9.) At times this affects also the hair of the whole body. True the passage of Hippocrates, in view of the erroneous punctuation, seems to belong more properly to what follows, still even by itself it would be probable enough, as the preliminary symptoms are found particularly in the arm-pit and the groin, and might of course extend their ravages there, just as much as on the head.” However should anyone wish to understand here all the hairy parts of the body mentioned, and suppose the Author to be speaking in the first instance in a general sense, then what follows will not agree, for the hair of the head and beard was not changed into white, but into yellow ( צָהֹב ), as V. 30 states. There are left therefore only the eye-brows, arm-pits and the pubic region, to which the transformation to white can apply.

Granting these considerations to be correct, it is impossible to understand the b’ôr b’sarô as signifying the whole exterior surface of the skin; it must imply a local limitation. But the limited area intended can be nothing but the genitals, and this agrees best at once with the facts and with the usages of Biblical phraseology. In more than one passage, in fact, of the Old Testament basar, like σάρξ (flesh) in the New, has the meaning of “sexual parts”; and even in English the word flesh, particularly in ecclesiastical language, is consecrated by custom in this sense. So Luther was perfectly justified in the passage under discussion in translating as he did: on the skin of his flesh, that is to say, of his genitals. The particular combination of b’ôr b’sarô we have not it is true been able to find used generally in the books of the Old Testament, but we must not therefore conclude absolutely that it is unique and peculiar to this XIIIth. Chapter; though indeed, if such were the case, it would merely be an additional confirmation of the explanation we have given.

So far as the matter of fact goes, such an assumption offers no difficulties,—indeed it actually removes several, as e.g. that connected with the coloration of the skin, and not only proves that already at that date pustules on the genitals had been observed that were free from any suspicion of malignant character, but further that along with a suspicious pustule or similar symptom (scurf, ulcer) there went a simultaneous general affection of the skin as a whole, which was held to be diagnostic for the local malady, and accordingly proclaimed even the suspected leper free from taint after his recovery from it. For evidently we must take verses 12 and 13 as indicating this, where it is stated in so many words: “And if the leprosy break out ( פָּרַח, —blossom) abroad in the skin, and the leprosy cover all the skin of him that hath the plague from his head even to his feet, as far as appeareth to the priest; then the priest shall look: and behold, if the leprosy have covered all his flesh, he shall pronounce him clean that hath the plague; it is all turned white: he is clean.” (English Revised Version). The last words have been wrongly referred by some Interpreters to the “Bohak” (bright spot), which is mentioned in verse 39., but really nothing more than this is intended:—after the eruption is dried up, and the skin has returned to its natural white colour, then the hitherto sick man is to be declared clean[183].

This diagnostic eruption again points to another fact, viz. that the leprosy must have had its seat in a part of the body, the cutaneous glands of which stand in a relation of lively sympathy with those of the skin generally, and this according to modern experience can only be the cutaneous glands of the genital organs. Sometimes inoculation with cow-pox lymph brings out a general eruption of the whole skin, but this circumstance cannot well be made pertinent here, as really and truly the lymph is a resultant product of a feverish affection, and therefore its innate tendency is towards a reproduction of itself under circumstances of feverish stimulation, and to set the whole organism, and consequently the whole cutaneous glandular system, in a state of enhanced activity. How the diagnostic eruption comes about may be gathered from the statement of the case given just above; while the passage quoted from von Roeser’s Work will explain the rest. Still for the present this much may suffice to put the expert reader in a position to test our conjecture,—for indeed so far it makes no profession to be more than a conjecture. Supposing it found tenable, then the further consequences that cannot but grow from it for the elucidation of the Chapter in discussion may be readily developed. On the other hand, if it is devoid of justification, it would be quite useless further to elaborate a hypothesis, plunging a subject obscure enough without this in even deeper darkness. Further than this we only need to mention that Hensler and others hold mentagra to be indicated in the bald chin and scurfy (scall) chin of Leviticus (XIII. 29 sqq.), which if they are right would merely be another point in favour of our view.

Finally there can hardly be any need for us to observe that we have no idea of holding leprosy in general to be a consequence of excesses; on the contrary we believe, to return to the problem we started with at the beginning of this Section, that we are bound to agree to the opinion first explicitly laid down by Becket[184], viz. that under the widely comprehensive notion of Leprosy were included other forms of skin-diseases owing their existence to some previous affection of the genital organs,—in precisely the same way as this happened in the Middle Ages, and as may be the case occasionally even at the present day.