[114] Bertrandi, “Abh. von den Geschwüren” (Treatise on Ulcers) from the Italian. Erfurt 1790. 8vo. § 200.
[115] Aëtius, Tetrab. II. serm. 4. ch. 16., Quandoquidem vero plurimi sunt qui illitionum usum aversantur, maluntque adhibere emplastra, utpote quae neque per sudores obtortos defluant, neque rarefacta etiam cutem circumtendant, annectam et horum aliquot apparatus. (However, inasmuch as there are many who are opposed to the use of salves, and prefer to apply plasters, on the ground that the latter are not liable to run through sweatings that are superinduced nor yet to liquify and spread on the skin, I will add some forms of these plasters).
[116] Plinius Valerianus, De re medica bk. II. 56., Graeco nomine lichenes appellatur, quod vulgo mentagram appellant, et est vitium, quod per totam faciem solet serpere, oculis tantum immunibus; descendit vero in collum et pectus ac manus, foedat cutem; eosque, qui sic vexantur, osculari non convenit, quoniam contactus eorum perniciosus fore perhibetur. (In Greek nomenclature the name lichenes is given to what the common people call mentagra, and is a malady that as a rule creeps over the whole face, the eyes alone being unaffected. But it also goes down to the neck and breast and hands, disfiguring the skin. It is not right for those so afflicted to kiss, for their contact is said to be injurious.)—Marcellus Empiricus, De med. liber ch. 19., Ad lichenem sive mentagram, quod vitium neglectum solet per totam faciem et per totum corpus serpere et plures homines inquinare. Nam Soranus medicus quondam ducentis hominibus hoc morbo laborantibus curandis in Aquitania se locavit. (For lichen or mentagra, a malady which if neglected will creep over the whole face and the whole body, and disfigures many men. Indeed Soranus a Physician at one time sold his professional services in Aquitania to two hundred patients suffering from this disease).
[117] Marcellus Empiricus, De medicam. liber ch. 19., Adversum Elephantiasin, quod malum plerumque a facie auspicatur, primumque oritur quasi lenticulis variis et inaequalibus, cute alba, alibi tenui, plerisque locis dura et quasi scabida et ad postremum sic increscit ut ossibus, caro adstricta, tumescentibus primum digitis atque articulis indurescat. Hic morbus peculiariter Aegyptiorum populis notus est nec solum in vulgus extremum, sed etiam reges ipsos frequenter irrepsit, unde adversus hoc malum solia ipsis in balneo repleta humano sanguine parabantur. Mustelae igitur exustae cinis et eiusdem belluae, id est elephantis sanguis immixtus et inlitus, huiusmodi corporibus medetur. (Against elephantiasis, which malady is generally seen in the face, beginning first with a sort of scales of various shape and different size, the skin being white, in some parts thick, in others thin, in most places hard and with a sort of scab over it; eventually the malady increases to such a degree that the flesh is as it were drawn tight over the bones, the fingers and joints swelling first, and becomes indurated. This disease was particularly familiar among the peoples of Egypt, and not merely did it affect the lowest vulgar, but even frequently crept in amongst kings themselves, whence it came that, to combat the evil, baths filled with human blood were prepared for them in the bath-house. The ashes therefore of a burned weasel and the blood of the corresponding beast, that is to say the elephant, were mixed together and used as an ointment in the remedial treatment of bodies so afflicted).—Actuarius, Meth. med. bk. VI. ch. 6. On diseases of the Face, reads: Ad affectus eminentes, facieique pruritus ac principum elephantiae, (For the principal affections, itchings of the face and the beginnings of elephantiasis). Again Aretaeus, De sign. chron. bk. II. ch. 13. edit. Kühn p. 179., says: τὰ πολλὰ μὲν ὅκως καὶ ἀπὸ σκοπιῆς τοῦ προσώπου ἀρχόμενον τηλεφανὲς πῦρ κακόν, (Most oftentimes resembling a far-seen bale-fire beginning from the watchtower, as it were, of the face).
[118] Commentar. in Horatium. Antwerp 1608. Vol. II. p. 469.
[119] Zachar. Platner, De Morbo Compano ad verba Horatii bk. I. Sat. V. v. LXII. prolusio (Dissertation on the Companian Disease as mentioned by Horace). Leipzig 1732. 4to., also reprinted in his Opuscula, Leipzig 1794. 4to. Vol. II. pp. 21-28. The author holds the disease to have been a sort of warts, having a resemblance with those observed in Syphilitic patients.—Nebel, E. L. W., De morbis veterum obscuris (On some Obscure Diseases of the Ancients), Sect. I., Giessen 1794. 8vo. pp. 18-25. The author believes the Morbus Campanus to have been identical with Sycosis or θύμιον (large wart), but to have had no connection with the Lues Venerea (Venereal Contagion).
[120] Noteworthy is the explanation of Isidore, Etymol. bk. IV. ch. 9. 17., Oscedo est, qua infantum ora exulcerantur, dicta a languore oscitantium. (Oscedo is a complaint whereby children’s mouths become ulcerated, so called from the languor of those gaping); the latter part is unintelligible. Were these oscitantes (gapers) possibly fellators? Lucian, Pseudolog. ch. 27. says of Timarchus, ἀναπετάσας τὸ στόμα, καὶ ὡς ἔνι πλατύτατον κεχηνὼς, ἠνείχου τυφλούμενος ὑπ’αὐτοῦ τὴν γνάθον. (and with a gape as wide as is possible to make, you were borne away, your jaw blocked by him).
[121] Horace, Odes III. 27. 11. Ausonius, Idyll. XI. 15.
[122] Luxus in the sense of sexual excess occurs not unfrequently in ancient writers, e.g. in Tacitus, Hist. IV. 14., Suetonius, Nero 29. Capua luxurians is well known from the history of Hannibal. It is worth noting that Paracelsus gives the name luxus to Venereal disease; he says, De causis et origine luis Gallicae, (Of the Causes and Origin of the French Contagion), bk. I. ch. 5.: Luxus autem nomen quod attinet, illud ab influentia, id est, efficiente causa desumptum esse intelligendum est. Est autem luxus irritatio quaedam ac titillatus spermatis, ad perficiendum actum venereum, a morbis in corpore latentibus causata, itaque Veneris impressione a morbo in actu ipso facta, tum ex vulgari luxu fit luxus morbi seu morbidus. Proinde luxus hic non naturalis sed Satyricus dicendus erit. (But luxus the name that is applied to it, this name must be understood as being taken from the influencing circumstance or efficient cause. Now luxus is a certain irritation or tickling of the seed, leading to the performance of the Venereal act and caused by diseases latent in the body, and so a strong motion of love being made in consequence of the disease in the act itself, then from the common expression luxus, is formed luxus of the disease, or morbid luxus. It follows this luxus will have to be called not natural, but Satyric luxus).
[123] Possibly a double entendre lurks even in the ad pugnam venere (they came to the fight). Festus, under the word, says: Osculana pugna in proverbio, quo significabatur victos vincere, (An Osculan—otherwise Asculan,—fight a proverbial saying that signified the vanquished being victorious). The Roman general Laevinus was beaten by King Pyrrhus at Asculum, soon after at the same place the King was himself beaten by Sulpicius.