CHAPTER XXVI.
GREAT BRITAIN.—SYPHILITIC DISEASES.
First Recognition in England.—Regulations of Henry VI.—Lazar Houses.—John of Gaddesden.—Queen Elizabeth’s Surgeon.—Popular Opinions.—Proclamation of James IV. of Scotland.—Middlesex and London Hospitals.—Army.-Navy.—Merchant Service.—St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.—Estimated Extent of Syphilis.
The best English and French writers are of opinion that syphilis, as it exists at present, has, in some shape or another, always existed among mankind, although it was not known to science or history, in a distinct manner, until the middle of the fifteenth century.
The period at which syphilis first made its appearance in England is involved in obscurity, but we know that it began to attract attention early in the fifteenth century. The first official recognition of it found on record is a police regulation of the year 1430, during the reign of Henry VI., excluding venereal patients from the London hospitals, and requiring them to be strictly guarded at night. In the time of Henry VIII. there were six lazar houses in London for the reception of venereal patients, namely, at Knightsbridge, Hammersmith, Highgate, Kingsland, St. George’s Gate, and Mile-End. These localities were doubtless fixed upon as being some distance from the city.
That the disease, however, must have been known long before the period above specified is certain, from passages which are to be found in the writings of the previous century. John of Gaddesden, who wrote in 1305, and who was a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, thus speaks of the possibility of contracting the disease from leprous women: “Ille qui concubuit cum muliere cum qua coivit leprosas puncturas intra carnem et corium sentil et aliquando calefactiones in toto corpore.”[320] Mr. Wm. Acton, upon whose pages as an English standard writer on this subject we draw largely, is of opinion that leprosy, which was formerly so common in Europe, consisted merely of what we now call secondary syphilis. Some of the Jewish observances were no doubt dictated by a scientific appreciation of the influences which predisposed the body to the effects of syphilitic virus. The practice of circumcision seems instituted with a direct view to the preservation of the chosen people from venereal contagion, to which, in a hot climate, and with the extreme deficiency of means for general cleanliness, they would be liable.
As to the type of the disease in former times, there seems no ground for believing that it was more severe than at present, while its numerical importance must have been much smaller. The following extract is from a treatise by Queen Elizabeth’s surgeon:
“If I be not deceived in my opinion, I suppose the disease itself was never more rife in Naples, Italie, France, or Spain, than it is in this day in the realme of England. I may speak boldly because I speak truly; and yet I speake it with grief of minde, that in the Hospital of St. Bartholomew, in London, there hath been cured of this disease by me and three others, within five years, to the number of one thousand and more. I speak nothing of St. Thomas’s Hospital, and other houses about the citie, wherein an infinite number are daily cured. It happened very seldom in the Hospital of St. Bartholomew while I staid there, among every twenty diseased that were taken into the said house, which was most commonly on the Monday, ten of them were infected with the lues venerea.”[321]