Pedro Pintor, according to Cotunnius, professor of anatomy at Naples, was amongst the earliest writers upon the venereal disease: his work, entitled ‘De Morbo Fœdo his temporibus affligente,’ was published at Rome A.D. 1500. He attributed the origin of the disease to a conjunction of the planets, and no doubt he was acquainted with the circumstance of the disease being propagated by cohabitation with a diseased person. Several of the inhabitants of Rome were attacked A.D. 1493, and the disease became common there until 1499; it principally attacked the limbs with excruciating pains and pustular eruptions, against which the physicians employed mercurial ointment mixed with lead,—an invention said to be due to a Portuguese. So rife did the pestilence become, that, according to Ruy Diaz de Isla, a native of Andalusia, their majesties Don Fernando de Aragon and Doña Isabel de Castilla gave instructions to their physicians to attend to those stricken with the disease, who were received into the hospital of San Salvador. Great numbers of the first professors and physicians of the land investigated the symptoms of the disease, and after treating it with the thousand and one remedies thought of with but little success, it was considered to be a chastisement from Heaven which befel all constitutions and conditions.
With reference to the origin of this pestilence—the venereal disease, there are various opinions. When it broke out in the French army at Naples A.D. 1495, the French called it ‘the disease of Naples,’ and said that at the siege of that place there were certain merchants who barrelled the flesh of men slain in Barbary, which they sold for tunny! and that from such food the disease originated. It is certain that cannibals are much infested with the venereal disease. It was known in England before 1162, and was called ‘Brenning’ or ‘Burning.’ This appears from Bishop Winton’s records of the public stews. The disease is well described by one Arden, who was surgeon to Richard II., in 1156, in a work expressly written on the subject.
A.D. 1495, King Don Fernando convoked the Cortes in the city of Tarragona, in consequence of the pestilence raging at Saragossa: it was attended by buboes, carbuncles, &c.; and in the following year, 1496, it appeared in a petechial form among the soldiers employed in Granada. Syphilis also prevailed at Naples amongst the troops of Charles VIII.
In the year 1496, an epidemic ulceration, as it was then called, of the skin (epidemic scurvy), invaded the inhabitants of Germany, Portugal, Ireland, and other countries.
A.D. 1497, Barcelona was again visited by epidemic pestilence: it made its appearance about the 18th of July, and continued until November. Gaspar Torella, a native of Valencia, physician and domestic prelate to Alexander VI., wrote a work upon the Morbus Gallicus, which was printed at Rome, according to Haller’s account, in the year 1497. Astruc makes mention of another work, entitled ‘Ex Coitu cum Impurâ Muliere.’
In the year 1498, Francisco Lopez de Villalobos, physician to Charles V. and to his son Philip II., published in Salamanca a folio work entitled ‘Sumario de la Medicina.’ Juan de Banos, in the first ten numbers of his ‘Voyages of the Portuguese to the East Indies,’ gives a circumstantial account of a pestilence which seized on the crews of their fleet after they had passed the Cape of Good Hope. The malady commenced with erysipelas and putrescence of the gums, so that those who were attacked were unable to take food; their bodies were racked with excruciating pains, and the stench from them was intolerable. This disease was evidently scurvy.
A.D. 1499, a great plague prevailed in Britain, carrying off thousands; 30,000 were reported to have perished from it in London alone. The king found it advisable to retire with all his Court to Calais. In Brussels, epidemic pestilence victimized daily 500 persons; mould-spots (signacula) were observed in Germany and in France. There was a great mortality from murrain in cattle in Germany, and very extensive destruction of all vegetation by blights and caterpillars. The inhabitants of both France and Germany suffered greatly from severe epidemic disease during this period; it assumed a glandular form, and continued until the year 1503. This pestilence, says Schenckius, was accompanied in some parts of Europe by famine, which was followed by a most vehement intemperature of the seasons; for a winter preceded, so terribly severe as to kill the brute creation everywhere, and the heat of the summer was of such cruel intensity that trees were set on fire by the heat of the sun: in fine, this year may be said to have been the commencement of a century of putrid malignant diseases,—a century replete with grand phenomena affecting human life in general. In the year 1501, epidemic pestilence, says Luis Lobera de Avila, made its appearance at Barcelona; it began about the middle of October, and spread to various other parts of Spain. The disease, according to the superstition of the times, was attributed to a celestial influence. During this period, the use of guaiacum, or holy wood, in the treatment of the venereal disease, was discovered: it was afterwards introduced into Italy about the year 1517, where its utility was first made known by a Spanish presbyter. Plague again visited Barcelona, and sadly crippled its commerce. The viceroy of Sicily prohibited the entry of shipping coming thence.
In the year 1504, China was nearly depopulated by pestilence. There was also a great mortality in Ireland from epidemic disease; and plague, about the same period, raged in Spain, in which country a severe earthquake was experienced on the 5th of April: it did a great deal of mischief, especially in Andalusia. About the same period a dreadful shock was felt at Lisbon, which continued for eight days, overthrowing several churches and more than 1500 houses, under the ruins of which upwards of 20,000 persons met their death. Several of the neighbouring towns were swallowed up, with vast numbers of their inhabitants. The year following, two comets were observed. Spotted fever was rife all over Europe, and pestilence prevailed in Lisbon.
In the summer of the year 1505, the sweating sickness again reared its head in England; the disease first broke out in London: it was of a much milder form than that which prevailed in the year 1485; it disappeared towards the close of the autumn, and appears to have been confined to England: no remarkable phenomena were observed here during this pestilence; it was otherwise, however, in other parts of Europe. The summer was wet, and the winter following a severe one; comets were seen in this and the following year, and an eruption of Vesuvius took place.
A.D. 1506. From the 15th to the 26th of January, there blew a violent storm from the south-west, which drove the King of Castile, Philip of Austria, with his consort Joanna, from the Netherlands to Weymouth; and as, some days before, a golden eagle falling from St. Paul’s Church in London had crushed a black eagle which ornamented some lower building, evil predictions were promulgated among the people respecting the fate of this son of the Emperor.