II. On the winds, of which frequent mention is made by our author, Coray has treated with a degree of prolixity and earnestness for which it is difficult to recognize the necessity. The figure given above, if properly studied and understood, will supply the professional reader with all the information he will require on this head.
III. One of the most singular diseases noticed in this work is the effeminacy with which the Scythians are said to have been attacked in consequence of spending the greater part of their time on horseback. (See § 22.) As the subject has attracted a good deal of attention lately, I will give a summary of the information which has been collected respecting it. See Coray, etc., t. ii., p. 331; Littré, t. ii., p. 5, 6; and Avert., xxxix., p. 47; t. iv., p. 9.
In the first place, then, it can scarcely admit of doubt that the disease is the same as that which Herodotus describes in the following passage: “Venus inflicted upon the Scythians, who pillaged her temple at Ascalon, and on their descendants, the feminine disease; at least it is to this cause that they attribute their disease; and travellers that go to the land of Scythia see how these persons are affected whom the Scythians called accursed (ἐναρεες).”[372]
All the opinions which have been entertained respecting this affection are referred by M. Littré to the three following categories:
I. A vice, namely (A), Pederasty, which, he says is the most ancient opinion we have respecting it, as indicated by Longinus[373] (on the Sublime, 25), and defended by his commentators, Toll and Pearce, and by Casaubon and Coster.[374] (B), Onanism, the opinion to which Sprengel inclines in his work on Hippocrates.
2. A bodily disease, to wit: (A), Hemorrhoids, as maintained by Paul Thomas de Girac,[375] by Valkenäer, by Bayer,[376] and by the Compilers of the ‘Universal History.’[377] (B), A true menstruation, as appears to be maintained by Lefevre and Dacier,[378] and by others. (C), Blenorrhagia, as Guy Patin[379] and others suppose. (D), A true impotence, as held by Mercuriali and others.
3. A mental disease, as maintained by Sauvages,[380] Heyne,[381] Coray,[382] and others.
M. Rosenbaum is at great pains to make out that the affection in question was pederasty, and that the accursed (ἐνάρεες) of Herodotus were the same as the pathici of the Romans. I must say, that in my opinion Rosenbaum makes out a strong case in support of this opinion. In particular it will be remarked, that Herodotus says, the descendants of these Scythians were also afflicted with this complaint. Now Celsus Aurelianus says expressly, that the affection of the pathici was hereditary.[383] Taking everything into account, I must say that my own opinion has always been that the disease in question must have been some variety of spermatorrhœa. I need scarcely remark that this affection induces a state, both of body and mind, analogous to that of the pathici, as described by ancient authors.
Before leaving this subject, however, I should mention that M. Littré, in the fourth volume of his Hippocrates (p. xi.), brings into view a thesis by M. Graff, the object of which is to prove that the disease of the Scythians was a true sort of impotence; and in illustration of it, he cites a passage from the memoirs of M. Larrey, containing a description of a species of impotence, attended with wasting of the testicle, which attacked the French army in Egypt. But, as far as I can see, this disease described by Larrey had nothing to do with riding on horseback, and I cannot see any relation between it and the diseases described by Herodotus and Hippocrates.