It was supposed, in former ages, that syphilis was transmissible by personal communication, touching the clothes, drinking out of the same vessels, or even breathing the same air with infected persons, and accordingly we find the lower orders of people driven out into the fields to die, and physicians refusing to attend the sick for fear of infection.
Some writers, indeed, doubted this kind of contagious influence, and held that it required intercourse, or at least contact. But nobles, and especially the clergy, preferred to ascribe their maladies to misfortune rather than to licentiousness, and sought to “put down” such innovating doctrines. The consequence was that patients were shunned universally, and left to die or get well without assistance. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that in numerous instances the disease should assume its most inveterate aspect, and hence the notices found among many old writers as to the supposed malignancy and incurability of what they were disposed to consider a newly-imported malady. That the disease, in reality, differed little from that which exists in our day, is proved by the fact that cases of the once formidable Black Lion are occasionally to be met with in the London hospitals.
Cardinal Wolsey, among other charges made against him by his enemies, was accused of whispering to the king, Henry VIII., and thereby casting his poisonous breath upon his royal grace, he (Wolsey) having at the time “the foul contagious disease” upon him. The belief as to contagion by this means is not entirely extinct, but is cherished by the laboring classes of England, many of whom entertain great prejudices on the score of health against drinking from the same vessel out of which an infected person has partaken.
In 1497, James IV. of Scotland, in consequence of the frightful prevalence of venereal disease in his kingdom, issued a proclamation banishing the infected from Edinburgh. His majesty “charges straitly all manner of persons being within the freedom of this burt, quilks are infectit, or has been infectit, uncurit with this said contagious plague, callit the grandgor devoyd, red and pass furt of this town, and compeir upon the sandis of Leith at ten hours before none; and thair sall thai have and find boatis reddie in the havin ordainit to them by the officers of this burt, reddy furneist with victuals, to have them to the Inche (Inchkeith), and thair to remain quhill God provyd for thair health.” Those evading this ordinance “salle be byrnt on the cheik with the marking irne, that thai may be kennit in tym to cum.”
A remnant of this barbarous system was retained in the regulations of Middlesex Hospital, London, by which an admission fee of forty shillings sterling (ten dollars) was directed to be paid by venereal patients. The reason assigned for it was, that a hospital intended for the virtuous might not be made subsidiary to purposes of vice. The regulation, however, became a nullity, and was repealed, owing principally to the fact that the work-house guardians were in the habit of paying the forty shillings and sending in pauper patients, well knowing that the cost of cure in the work-house would far exceed the admission fees.
In the London Hospital a similar regulation exists even now, but is openly evaded, however, by the house surgeon describing the disease as a cutaneous one.
The extent of this disease in Great Britain is matter of opinion alone. There are no positive data whatever upon which to form any conclusion with respect to the general population, while the hospital lists are very imperfectly kept, and it is only in the army and navy returns that we can find any real assistance.
BRITISH ARMY.
The army reports quoted extend over a period of seven years and a quarter, and enter into the details of the various venereal affections of the soldiers, amounting to the aggregate strength of 44,611 quartered in the United Kingdom. The cases admitted into hospitals were: