Having, I hope, sufficiently made it appear, the Burning was a Disease very early among us, and given the Description of it, I shall proceed to say something of the ancient Method that was made use of to cure it. We are not to expect the Measures our Predecessors, in those early Times, made use of, should be calculated for the removing any Malignity in the Mass of Blood, or other Juices, according to the Practice in Venereal Cases at this Time; because they looked upon the Disease to be entirely local, and the Whole of the Cure to depend upon the Removal of the Symptoms: Hence it was they recommended such Remedies as were accommodated to the taking off the inward Heat of the Part, and cure the Excoriations or Ulcerations of the Urethra. The Process for the accomplishing of this, I shall set down from the before-mentioned John Arden, who wrote about the Year 1380, His Words are as follow: Contra Incendium. Item contra Incendium Virgæ Virilis interius ex calore & excoriatione, fiat talis Syringa (i. e. Injectio) lenitiva. Accipe Lac mulieris masculum nutrientis, & parum zucarium, Oleum violæ & ptisanæ, quibus commixtis per Syringam infundator, & si prædictis admiscueris lac Amigdalarum melior erit medicina. There is no doubt but this Remedy, being used to our Patients at this Time, would infallibly take off the inward Heat of the Part, and cure the Excoriations or Ulcerations of the Urethra, by which means what issued from thence would be entirely stopt: and this was all they expected from their Medicines, forasmuch as they were entirely unacquainted with the Nature of the Distemper; and did not in the least imagine, but if the Symptoms that first attack’d the Part were removed, the Patient was entirely cured.
I shall now, as a farther Confirmation of what I have advanced, proceed to prove, that by this Brenning or Burning is meant the Venereal Disease, by demonstrating that succeeding Historians, Physical and Chirurgical Writers, and others, have all along with us in England used the very same Word to signify the Venereal Malady. In an old Manuscript, I have, written about the Year 1390. is a Receipt for Brenning of the Pyntyl, yat Men clepe ye Apegalle; Galle being an old English Word for a running Sore. They who know the Etymology of the Word Apron, cannot be ignorant of this. And in another Manuscript, written about 50 Years after, is a Receipt for Burning in that Part by a Woman. Simon Fish, a zealous Promoter of the Reformation in the Reign of Hen. VIII. in his Supplication of Beggars, presented to the King, in 1530, says as follows, These be they (speaking of the Romish Priests) that corrupt the whole Generation of Mankind in your Realm, that catch the Pockes of one Woman and bear them to another; that be Burnt with one Woman and bear it to another; that catch the Lepry of one Woman and bare it unto another. But to make this Matter still more evident, I am to observe, that Andrew Boord, M. D. and Romish Priest, in the same Reign, in a Book he wrote, entitl’d The Breviary of Health, printed in 1546, speaks very particularly of this sort of Burning; one of his Chapters beginneth thus, The 19th Chapiter doth shew of BURNING of an Harlot; where his Notion of communicating the Burning is very particular. He adds, that if a Man be Burnt with an Harlot, and do meddle with another Woman within a Day, he shall Burn her; and as an immediate Remedy against the Burning, he recommends the washing the Pudenda 2 or 3 times with White Wine, or else with Sack and Water; but if the Matter have continued long, to go to an expert Surgeon for Help. In his 82d Chapter, he speaks of two sorts of Burning, the One by Fire, and the Other by a Woman thro’ carnal Copulation, and refers the Person that is Burnt of a Harlot to another Chapter of his for Advice, what to do, yf he get a Dorser or two, so called from its Protuberancy or bunching out: For I find about that Time the Word Bubo was mostly made use of, to signify that sort of Swelling which usually happens in pestilential Diseases.
From hence it appears, the Burning, by its Consequents, was Venereal; since every Day’s Experience makes it evident, that the ill Treatment of the first Symptoms of the Disease, either by astringent Medicines, or the removing them by cooling and healing the excoriated Parts, will generally be attended with such Swellings in the Groin, which we rarely observe to happen from any other Cause whatsoever.
I shall give a few more Instances of this Disease being call’d the Burning, and conclude. In a Manuscript I have of the Vocation of John Bale to the Bishoprick of Ossory in Ireland, written by himself, he speaks of Dr. Hugh Weston (who was Dean of Windsor in 1556. but deprived by Cardinal Pole for Adultery) as follows; “At this Day is lecherous Weston, who is more practised in the Art of Brech-Burning than all the Whores of the Stews. And again, speaking of the same Person, he says, “He not long ago brent a Beggar in St. Botolph’s Parish. The same Author says of him elsewhere, “He had ben sore Bitten with a Winchester Goose, and was not yet healed thereof; which was a common Phrase for the Pox at that Time, because the Stews were under the Jurisdiction of the Bishop of Winchester. Mich. Wood, in his Epistle before Stephen Gardiner’s Oration de vera Obedientia, printed at Rhoan, 1553. gives another Evidence of the Burning. And William Bullein, a Physician in the Reign of Queen Eliz. in a Book he publish’d, call’d The Bulwark of Defence, &c. printed in 1562. bringing in Sickness demanding of Health what he should do with a Disease call’d the French Pockes, Health answers, “He would not that any should fishe for this Disease, or to be bold when he is bitten to thynke thereby to be helped, but rather to eschewe the Cause of thys Infirmity, and filthy rotten Burning of Harlots.
London, Feb. 4.
1717–18.William Beckett,
NUMBER III.
A Second Letter on the same Subject to William Wagstaffe, M. D.
SIR,