Chapter XXII: Section XIII: Stamp No. Xii.—found in Ireland

A Roman medicine-stamp has lately turned up in these islands, in a locality in which its presence could be little expected—viz., in the county of Tipperary, in Ireland. It has been described by Mr. Albert Way in an interesting paper, published after the first part of the present essay appeared in the _Monthly Journal of Medical Science_.[569] Dr. Dowsley, of Clonmel, who now possesses this stone, has kindly furnished me with a wax impression of its inscription, and with the following note relative to the locality in which it was discovered:—“It was found (he says) near the village of Golden, parish of Relig-Murry, in the county of Tipperary, in a field near the ruins of an old hospital, or at least what was supposed to be such; but it was built at so remote a period, that there is now no record of what the building was for, nor of the founder of it, and so little of the walls are at present standing, that even the style of architecture cannot be known. The seal was discovered by a labourer when digging. There was no pottery nor coin found; but near it was a human skeleton much decayed, the position of which in the ground was not noticed. The soil in this field is peculiarly rich and very deep; it is frequently carted away for manure; most likely it was an ancient burial-ground. The village of Golden is about a mile from the old Abbey of Athassel.”

It is unnecessary to discuss here how such a Roman relic reached this part of Ireland,[570] and whether it was conveyed there or not when the Romans were colonising Britain; or, what is probable, at a later period. But I may merely remark, there can be no doubt that Roman civilisation and Roman practices spread in the earlier centuries of the Christian era to parts beyond the precise line of Roman conquest. Other Roman relics have been found in Ireland,[571] though Ireland was never subject to the Roman arms; and Roman vases, ornaments, and coins, have been discovered even in those more distant and northern Scandinavian settlements, to which the Roman power never penetrated.[572]

Plate III., No. XII., shows the figure of this Irish medicine-stamp. It is engraved only on one side, and the inscription runs as follows:—

M IUVEN TUTIANI
DIAMYSUS AD VET CIC

M(_arci?_) JUVEN_tii_ TUTIANI DIAMYSUS AD VET_eres_ CIC_atrices_.—_The Diamysus of Marcus Juventius Tutianus, for old cicatrices._

At the end of the first line there is a small cut in the inscription (see Plate), which, in all probability, is not a letter, but a mark or ornament intended to fill up that space. If a letter, it is most likely C, standing perhaps for collyrium.

In speaking of the Bath stone, I have already taken occasion to state that this same inscription of _Diamysus ad veteres cicatrices_ has now been found on various Roman medicine-stamps discovered in different parts of France.

The collyrium DIAMISYOS or DIAMYSOS derived its designation from containing as its principal ingredient the _Misy_, a metallic vitriolic preparation, used to a considerable extent as a stimulant and escharotic among the ancients; and it was retained even to a comparatively late period in the London Pharmacopœia.[573] It appears to be still used medicinally in the East.[574]

The chemical nature, however, of _Misy_ has given rise to some considerable doubt and discussion. It was usually found, and generally described, along with two other cognate fossils, _Sori_ and _Chalcitis_. And Galen, who enters into an elaborate description of them, visited the copper mines of Cyprus, with a view of determining the precise nature of these three mineral substances.[575]

Dr. Adams,[576] who has examined this question with all his well-known great learning and care, believes that these three minerals were merely varieties of _chalcanthum_ or copperas. In his opinion the _Chalcitis_ was probably a kind of pure sulphate of copper which had contracted an efflorescence from age; the _Sori_ was sulphate of copper combined with zinc or other impurities; and the _Misy_ was a combination of sulphate of copper with sulphate of iron, the predominance of the chalybeate salt giving to the fossil its peculiar colour. For the Misy, says Dioscorides, is “of a golden appearance, hard, shining like gold when broken, and glancing like stars.”

In his remarks on the _Misy_, Dioscorides speaks of the analogy of its caustic power with those of Chalcitis; but the only diseases that he referred to as having the _Misy_ used in their treatment, are the diseases of the eye. And he does so in telling us that the Egyptian kind of _Misy_ is quite inferior to the Cyprian in forming eye-medicines (ocularia medicamenta).[577]

In speaking of its medical powers, Galen,[578] Oribasius,[579] and Paulus Ægineta,[580] describe the _Misy_ as escharotic, and astringent. In giving his list of eye-medicines, Galen places the _Misy_, _Sori_, etc., amongst those local applications which have a detergent effect.[581] Paulus Ægineta enters the _Misy_ in his list of “detergents of foul ulcers” of the eye (vol. iii. p. 548). Pliny, in describing the properties of Misy, states that “extenuat scabrities oculorum.”[582] Celsus in his work repeatedly alludes to the _Misy_ and its effects.[583] One of the collyria which he describes when treating of granular ophthalmia, contains the _Misy_ (see page 294). And he adds, that with the exception of those affections which require mild applications, this special collyrium is adapted to every kind of disorder of the eye (adversus omne genus oculorum valetudinis idoneum est). Galen (vol. xii. p. 736), Oribasius (lib. iv. p. 51), and Paulus Ægineta (vol. iii. 556), all give formulæ for the collyrium PANCHRESTOS of Erasistratus, which contained _Misy_ as its leading ingredient. “It has,” says Paulus, “wonderful efficacy in diseases of the eyes.” Oribasius enters it as a “compositio admirabilis.” The _Misy_, as a reputed “valedissimum medicamentum,” enters as an ingredient into several of the collyria described by Actuarius.[584]

In a previous page I have already taken occasion to state that Marcellus Empiricus gives a formula for a collyrium under the name inscribed upon the stone of the collyrium DIAMISYOS; and he describes it as calculated “ad aspritudines oculorum tollendas et ad lachrymas substringendas.”

The collyrium _Diamisyos_ of Marcellus Empiricus consists of _Misy_ burnt till it becomes red, and then combined with spikenard, saffron, cadmia, calcined copper, opium, myrrh, Cyprian scales, and gum, with all which it was to be rubbed down in the best wine, shaken and filtered. But he gives also the alternative of adding to the _Diamysos_ another ingredient, which was long an article in the materia medica—viz. vipers. For some (he observes) add to the collyrium _Diamisyos_ “a viper, dried and baked well in the sun, as if it were salted” (quidam adjiciunt huic collyrio viperam siccam et arefactam bene in sole tanquam si sit salita). He goes on, however, still further to explain that prayers and incantations must be used in making this addition to the _Diamisyos_. For (he observes) if you thus wish to add the dried viper, you must first extract its bones, roll it up in linen, and then pour over it the wine of the collyrium, previously charming the viper (sed prius eam praecantabis) as follows, lest it cause tears and produce harm, saying, “As thou dost not see, even so may thy juice, when tasted, hurt no one, but I pray that with the purpose for which thou hast been added, thou mayest[585] further the cure (quomodo tu non vides, sic et tuus succus gustatus nulli noceat, sed ob rem propter quam adjecta es proficias bene curationi, precor).”[586]

ANTIQUARIAN NOTICES OF SYPHILIS IN SCOTLAND.

Medical men are, for the most part, agreed upon two points in relation to the history of syphilis—viz. that it is a species of disease which was unknown to the Greek, Roman, and Arabian physicians; and that it first began to prevail in Europe in the later years of the fifteenth century.

The non-existence of syphilis in ancient times, and the circumstance of its original appearance in Europe about the date alluded to, are opinions strongly borne out by two sets of facts. For, first, no definite account of this marked and extraordinary species of disease is to be found in the writings of any one of the ancient Greek or Roman physicians, historians, or poets; and, secondly, of the numerous authors whose works exist in the learned collections of Luisinus,[587] Astruc,[588] and Girtanner,[589] and who saw and described the malady in the later years of the fifteenth or commencement of the sixteenth century, almost all comment upon it as (to use their own general expressions) _morbus novus, morbus ignotus, ægritudo inaudita, ægritudo nova, malum novum, novus et nostro orbe incognitus morbus_, etc. etc.[590]

It would not, however, affect our present object were we to consider the disease, as it appeared about the period in question, not to have been a new malady previously totally unknown, but merely, as some have thought, an aggravated form of a disease formerly existing in so mild a form as not to have attracted general observation.

Nor need I stop here to inquire into the much more difficult questions of the probable source of syphilis, and the exact date at which syphilis first burst forth in Europe. In relation to the object which I have at present in view, it matters not whether the malady sprang up spontaneously and endemically in Spain, Italy, or France, at the era in question; or was imported from Africa, as Grüner,[591] Infessura,[592] and others allege; or from Hispaniola, as Astruc,[593] Girtanner,[594] Weatherhead,[595] and various other authorities, have stoutly and not unsuccessfully maintained. Nor is it necessary for me to discuss whether it first showed itself in 1493, as Sanchez[596] and Hensler[597] consider that they have proved; or in 1492, as Fulgosi[598] asserts; or as early even as the month of October 1483, as Peter Pinctor,[599] in 1500, demonstrated astrologically, to his own complete satisfaction at least, that it ought to have done, inasmuch as that was—as he sagaciously convinced himself—the precise and exact date of the conjunction of Venus with Jupiter, Mars, and Mercury; and the conjunction of these or other stars in the heavens above, was—so he and many of the astrological physicians of his day believed—the undoubted origin of this new scourge on the earth below.

In such a notice as the present, we may most safely, I believe, and that too without entertaining the question of the exact source or geographical origin of syphilis, start from the general proposition that the disease was in 1494 and 1495 first distinctly recognised in Italy, during the invasion of that country by the victorious army of Charles VIII. of France. The malady is usually allowed to have first broken out in a very marked degree at Naples, about the time that Charles took possession of that city, in the spring of 1495; or nearly two years after Columbus’ return from his first voyage to Hispaniola. Charles set out again for France in May 1495; and the malady seems to have been both diffused by his infected troops along the line of their northward march, and afterwards carried to their respective homes by his own French soldiers, as well as by his various Swiss, German, and Flemish auxiliaries.

But it is as little my intention at present to trace the progress as to ascertain the first origin of syphilis in Europe. The chief object of the present communication is to adduce some data which show that the new malady was not long in reaching the shores of Scotland, and in spreading to different towns in that kingdom. In proof of this, I have principally to appeal to one or two old edicts and ordinances relative to the disease, and to other collateral but slighter evidence bearing upon the subject. The edicts or statutes in question were issued by the Town-Council of Aberdeen, in relation to the existence of the malady in Aberdeen; and by the Privy Council of Scotland, in relation to the prevalence of the disease in Edinburgh. The two first edicts in both places were issued in 1497. That of Aberdeen is the earlier. It is dated the 21st of April 1497. Its words, as they stand in the old and carefully preserved Council Records of that city,[600] are the following:—

“The said day, it was statut and ordanit be the Alderman and Consale for the eschevin _of the infirmitey cumm out of Franche and strang partis_, that all licht weman be chargit and ordanit to decist fra thar vices and syne of venerie, and all thair buthis and houssis skalit, and thai to pas and wirk for thar sustentacioun vndir the payne of ane key of het yrne one thair chekis, and banysene of the toune.” (Vol. i. p. 425.)

A few years later—or on the 8th October 1507—a long list of statutes was passed by the “Prouest, bailyes, and counsale” of Aberdeen, for the “common proffitt, weil, and gud reull of the burgh.” Two of these statutes refer again to the introduction and spread of syphilis. By the first of these statutes it was enacted “That diligent inquisitioun be takin of ale infect personis with this strange _seiknes of Nappillis_, for the sauetie of the town; and the personis beand infectit therwith be chargit to keip thaime in their howssis and vther places fra the haill folkis.” (Vol. i. p. 437.)

Two or three enactments follow in the “statut buk” on minor subjects, one ordering the hygienic measure “that thar salbe certane personis to cleng the toun and dicht the causaies;” and then succeeds another sanitary ordinance relative to the avoidance of syphilis—viz. “That nayne infeccht folkis with the _seiknes of Napillis_ be haldin at the common fleschouss, or with the fleschouris, baxteris, brousteris, ladinaris, for sauete of the toun, and the personis infectit sale keip thame quyat in thar houssis, zhardis, or vther comat placis, quhill thai be haill, for the infectioun of their nichtbouris.” (P. 437.)

The Edinburgh edict regarding syphilis was six months later in date than the first of those issued by the magistrates of Aberdeen, and is more lengthy in its details and provisions. It was drawn up, as I have already said, by the King’s Privy Council, and apparently sent to the magistrates for due execution. It is preserved in the first volume of the _Town Records of Edinburgh_, fol. 33, 34, and is entitled in the rubric “Ane Grangore Act;”—Grandgore being an early term often applied to syphilis in Scotland. This edict has been repeatedly printed, but usually in a very incorrect form. The exact date and words of it are as follows:—

“xxii Septembris anno i^ai iiii^c lxxxxvii zeiris. It is our Souerane Lordis will and the command of the Lordis of his Counsale send to the Provest and baillies within this burch, that this proclamatioune follow and be put till executioune for the eschewing of the greit apperand danger of the infectioune of his liegis fra this contagius seiknes callit the Grandgor, and the greit vther skayth that may occure to his legeis and inhabitouris within this burch—that is to say—We charge straitlie and commandis be the authoritie abone written, that all maner of personis being within the fredome of this burch quhilkis ar infectit or hes bene infectit vncurit with this said contagious plage callit the Grandgor, devoyd red and pas furth of this toun and compeir vpoun the sandis of Leith at x houris befoir none, and thair sall thai haue and fynd botis reddie in the havin ordanit to thame be the officiaris of this burch reddely furneist with victuallis to haue thame to the Inche, and thair to remane quhill God prouyde for thair health, and that all vther personis the quhilkis takis vpoune thame to hale the said contagious infirmitie and takis[601] the cure thairof, that they devoyd and pas with thame, sua that nane of thir personis quhilkis takis sic cure vpoune thame vse the samyn cure within this burch in presens nor peirt ony maner of way—and quha sa beis fundin infectit and nocht passand to the Inche as said is be Monounday at the sone ganging to, and in lykwayis the saidis personis that takis the said cure of sanitie vpoun thame gif thai will vse the samyn thai and ilk of thame sal be brynt on the cheik with the marking irne that thai may be kennit in tyme to cum—and thairefter gif ony thame remanis that thai sall be banisht but fauouris.”

It is almost unnecessary to add that the measures adopted by the public authorities in Aberdeen and Edinburgh were utterly inadequate to arrest the further dissemination of syphilis after it was inoculated upon the country. It seems indeed to have been spread to the more populous towns of Scotland within a year or two after its first introduction into the kingdom. There are some references in official documents of the period which incidentally but amply prove this rapidity in its diffusion.

The notices to which I here specially refer exist in the Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland. The Register House, Edinburgh, contains a curious and valuable series of these Accounts, detailing the daily expenses of the kings of Scotland from the reign of James III. down to the ascension of the English throne by James VI. At the time of the first appearance of syphilis in our northern realm, the throne of Scotland was occupied by James IV., a prince who was a great patron of the arts and sciences of his time. He was a practitioner in them also, as well as a patron of them. At different times we find him busily experimenting in chemistry, in physiology, and in medicine. His daily expense-books contain many entries of purchases for instruments and materials to make the unmakeable “quinta essentia,” or philosopher’s stone; and he had laboratories for these investigations both at Edinburgh and Stirling. His alchemical assistant—John the Leeche—whom he had imported from the Continent and made Abbot of Tungland, experimented for the king in physiology as well as in chemistry. John, Dædalus-like, undertook to prove the improvability of human progression by flying to France with wings. “To that effect he causet (states Bishop Lesley[602]) mak ane pair of wingis of fedderis, quhilkis beand fessinit apoun him, he flew off the castell wall of Striveling, but shortly he fell to the ground and brak his thee bane.” But the doctrine of sympathies was in vogue in these days, and by that doctrine the afflicted Abbot easily, of course, and clearly explained all. For the cause of his fall, or “the wyt thairof he asscryvit to that thair was sum hen fedderis in the wingis, quhilk yarnit and covet the mydding and not the skyis.” Like the Egyptian king mentioned by Herodotus, King James made also a physiological or rather philological experiment to ascertain the primeval language of mankind; and for this purpose his Majesty sent a deaf and dumb woman to live with and bring up two young children upon the island of Inchkeith in the Firth of Forth—the same island to which we have found the first victims of syphilis previously banished, and itself the old “Urbs Guidi” of the venerable Bede. When the two children, the companions of the “dumb voman cam to the aige of perfyte speach, some sayes” (to quote the account of Lindsay of Pitscottie) “they spak guid Hebrew;”[603] but the cautious old Scottish chronicler sagely doubts the truth of this tradition. King James personally practised the art of leechcraft, as well as experimented in alchemy and physiology. “He was,” says Pitscottie, “weill learned in the airt of medicine, and was ane singular guid chirurgiane; and thair was none of that professioune, if they had any dangerous cure in hand, bot would have craved his adwyse” (p. 249). So states the ancient Scottish historian. The High Treasurer’s Account shows that the king had in one important respect a right royal way of gaining patients,—a way by the adoption of which he probably might have secured a considerable consultation and private practice even in these modern days of high-pressure rivalry, and keen competition. For he paid his patients, instead of being paid by them. Thus, for example, in his daily expense-book, under the date of April 14th and 15th, 1491, are the two following entries:—

“Item to Domenico to gif the king leve to lat him blud, xviii shillings.” “Item til a man yat come to Lythgow to lat the king blud and did it nocht, xviii shillings.”

Some time afterwards he buys from a travelling pedlar “thre compases, ane hammer, and a turcase to tak out teeth;” and forthwith, we find the Scottish king becoming—like the more modern Peter the Great of Russia—not a dentist to royalty, but himself a royal dentist, as the two following entries may suffice to show (the first of them—provided there be any truth whatever in dental orthography—surely indicating a tooth of rather a tough and tusky character):—

“Item, to ane fallow, because the king pullit furtht his twtht, xviii shillings.”

“Item, to Kynnard, ye barbour, for tua teith drawin furtht of his hed be the king, xviii shillings.”

He seems to have tried his royal hand also at ocular surgery. But the terms of the following entry would seem rather ominously to hint that he was not a very successful operator for cataract:—

“Item, giffin to ye blind wif yat hed her eyne schorne, xiii shillings.”

A prince imbued with such medical and surgical propensities would naturally feel deeply interested in the first appearance within his realm of such a malady as syphilis; and in his Treasurer’s accounts there are several entries indicating that the king had bestowed monies upon various persons affected with this disease. Perhaps these monies were given less in the way of alms than in the way of a reward for the king’s medication of the patients; less for the behoof of royal charity than of royal chirurgery. The entries I advert to all occur during the currency of the years 1497 and 1498.[604] They are as follows:—the first sum given away being to a person at Dalry, when the king was on one of his many pilgrimages to the ancient and holy shrine of St. Ninian at Whitehorn, in Wigtownshire.

September 1497.

“Item, to ane woman with the grantgore thair [Dalrye, in Ayrshire], be the kingis command iijs. vjd.”

2 October 1497.

“Item to thaim that hed the grantgor at Linlithquho viijd.”

21 February 1497-8.

“Item, that samyn day at the tounne end of Strivelin to the seke folk in the grantgore ijs.”

22 February 1497-8.

“Item, the xxij day of Februar giffin to the seke folk in the grangore at the tounn end of Glasgo. ijs.”

April 1498.

“... seke folk in grangor in Lithgw as the King com in the tounne ijs. viijd.”

In the course of the preceding remarks I have had occasion to adduce seven or eight different notices with regard to the appearance of syphilis in various cities and districts of Scotland during the years 1497-8, as at Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Stirling, Linlithgow, etc. A diversity of allusions to the same disease, of a less direct and official character, and somewhat later in date, may be traced in various olden Scottish works and writings. The malady is occasionally alluded to, for example, in the reports left us of some of the old criminal and other trials of Scotland. Thus a minute in the Records of the Privy Seal of Scotland records the punishment of a medical man in whose hands a dignitary of the church had died while under treatment for syphilis. The entry is as follows:—

January 18th, 1509.—“Respitt made to Thomas Lyn, burges of Edinburgh, for ye slauchtir of umquihile Schir Lancelote Patonsoun, chapellain, quhilk happinit be negligent cure and medicine yat ye said Thomas tuk one him to cure and hele ye said umquhile Schir Lancelote of ye infirmitie of ye Grantgor yat he was infekkit with. To endure for xix yeeris. (Subscripsit per dominum Regem apud Edinburghe.)”[605]

Some, perhaps, of my professional brethren may think that this nineteen years’ banishment from the town was a proper punishment for an unprofessional charlatan undertaking the cure of syphilis in the sixteenth century; and some, possibly, may even hold, that it would not be an improper proceeding in this—the nineteenth century.

The disease is alluded to in some of the old Scotch witch trials of the sixteenth century.

One of the most remarkable of these trials was that of a lady of station and wealth—Euphame Macalzane, daughter of Lord Cliftonhall, a judge of the Court of Session. Among other matters, she was “indyted and accusit” of using, during the birth of her two sons, anæsthetics in the form of charms, and a fairy stone “layit under the bowster,” whereby, in the words of the dittay, “your seiknes was cassin of you unnaturallie, in the birth of your fyrst sone upon ane dog, quhilk ranne away and wes newir sene agane. And in the birth of your last sone, the same prakteis foirsaid wes usit, and your naturall and kindlie payne, unnaturallie cassin of you uponn the wantonne cat in the house, quhilk lyke wyis wes newer sene thair efter.” In the fourteenth item of her indictment she is accused of trying to break off a marriage by “certane witchcraft,” and by alleging that the intended bridegroom had the “glengore.” For these and other analogous crimes this unfortunate lady was “takin to the Castel-Hill of Edinburghe, and thair bund to ane staik, and brunt in assis, quick to the death.”[606]

There are also various sarcastic allusions to syphilis by the Scottish poets of these early days, amply testifying to the fact of its rapid diffusion both among the followers of the court—who were then the most common objects of poetical satire—and among the community at large.

William Dunbar, the flower of the old Scottish poets, was, at the period of the first introduction of syphilis in 1497, in the prime of manhood; and in two or three years afterwards, viz. in 1500, he was attached to James IV. and his court by an annual state pension. In a number of verses addressed to his patroness, Margaret, the Queen of James IV. and the sister of Henry VIII.—verses which appear to us at the present day, and with our existing standards of taste, as utterly degraded and indecent—Dunbar commemorates the communication of the new disease under the name of the “pockis” and the “Spanyie pokis,” to the Queen’s men (as he terms them) during the jollities of Fastern’s e’en, and the reign of the Abbot of Unreason; and he closes his stanzas with an earnest advice to all youths, to

“Be ware with that perrelous play
That men callis libbing of the Pockis.”[607]

The after effects and consequences of the disease he describes as follows:—

“Sum that war ryatouss as rammis,
Ar now maid tame lyk ony lammis,
And settin doun lyk scarye crockis,
And hes forsaikin all sic gammis
That men call libbing of the Pockis.”

“Sum thocht thame selffis stark lyk gyandis,
Ar now maid weak lyk willow wandis,
With schinnis scharp, and small lyk rockis,
And gottin thair bak in bayth thair handis,
For ower oft libbing of the Pockis.”

Another and later poet of that age, Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount, alludes to the occurrence of syphilis at the Christmas feasts in an inferior officer of the court—viz. in John Mackrery, the king’s “fule,” or royal jester, who, according to the poet—like many a poor fool since John’s time—did

“In his maist triumphand gloir
For his reward get the Grandgoir.”[608]

The same author includes this disease elsewhere (p. 147) among the maladies

“Quhilk humane nature dois abhor,
As in the Gut, Gravel, and Gor.”

A metrical translation of Hector Boece’s _History of Scotland_ was made in the earlier half of the sixteenth century, apparently by command of James V. It has been published for the first time, within the last two years, under the authority and direction of the Master of the Rolls. The author of this rhyming _Buik of the Chronicles of Scotland_, William Stewart, when translating Boece’s account of the fatal disease produced in the old mythical Scotch king, Ferquhard, by the bite of a wolf, tells us (vol. ii. p. 313) that the resulting gangrenous wound defied the skill of the leiches, and the fœtor of it, and its discharges were

“Moir horribill als that time for till abhor,
No canker, fester, gut, or yit Grandgor.”

In the celebrated old poem of the _General Satire of Scotland_, attributed by most authorities to Dunbar, and which, from some circumstances adverted to in the course of it, is supposed by Sibbald and Chalmers to have been written in 1504 (seven years after the first introduction of syphilis), the author deplores the extent to which the disease had by that time already spread in Scotland, observing—

“Sic losing sarkis, so mony Glengoir markis,
Within this land was nevir hard nor sene.”[609]

In several of the notices which I have just quoted, the new disease, syphilis, is alluded to under the names of “Gor,” “Gore,” “Grandgore,” etc. Few maladies have been loaded with a more varied and more extensive nomenclature. The terms in question, “Gore” and “Grandgore,” are of French origin, and are old names corresponding to pox and great pox—“verole” and “grand verole.” In the earlier periods of the history of syphilis they were terms commonly employed by the French themselves to designate the affection. To quote one confirmatory sentence from Astruc (p. 1166), the disease “Gore et Grandgore a Gallis initio vocata erat.” John le Maire, in his celebrated poem on syphilis, published in 1520, gives this as one of the designations of the disease used at that time by the commonalty:—

“La nommoit Gorre ou la verole grosse,
Qui n’espargnoit ne couronne ne crosse.”[610]

Old Rabelais, whose _Gargantua_ and _Pantagruel_ are perfect repositories of the low and licentious French words of the era at which syphilis first appeared, uses the term Grandgore as a synonym for syphilis; and in his wild allegorical style he makes the poor and widowed poet, Rammagrobis, take this grandgore to bed for his second wife. The term Grandgore seems to have been applied to the disease in Scotland for a long time after its introduction. For example, the author of the _Historie of the Kennedys_ quotes a letter written in the latter part of the sixteenth century by the Laird of Colzean to the Laird of Bargany, whose “neise was laich,” maliciously suggesting to him that yet he might lose “sum uther joynt of the Glengoir, as ye did the brig of your neise.”[611] Still later, or in 1600, the Kirk-Session of Glasgow requested the magistrates “to consult the chirurgeons how the infectious distemper of Glengore could be removed from the city.”[612]

In Scotland, as elsewhere, the disease also passed under other designations. When syphilis first broke out it was frequently, as is well known, designated from the country or people from whom it was supposed to have been transmitted. Thus, the Italians and Germans at first generally spoke of it as the French disease; while the French talked of it as the disease of Naples; and the Dutch, Flemings, Portuguese, and Moors, applied to it the name of the Spanish pocks or Castilian malady. Dunbar, in the Scottish poem already alluded to as addressed to Queen Margaret, speaks of it, in most of the stanzas, under the simple title of “pockis,” but in one he gives it, as I have already hinted, the distinctive and significant appellation of the Spanish pocks:—

“I saw cow-clinkis me besyd;
The young men to thair howssis gyd,
Had better liggit in the stockis;
Sum fra the bordell wald nocht byd,
Quhill that thai gatt the Spanyie Pockis.”

In two of the Aberdeen Town-Council entries we have already seen the malady spoken of as “the sickness of Naples.” This name was at first often applied to the malady. The disease was, however, much more generally known in Scotland and in the other kingdoms of Europe under the name of the French pox. The first Aberdeen edict speaks of it in 1497 as the “infirmity come out of France.” In the manuscript Session Records of the parish of Ormiston for 1662, there is an entry regarding the malady under the appellation of the French pox, one of the minutes being—

“The minister, Mr. Sinclair, hath given out to James Ogilvy, apothecary-chirurgeon, for curing William Whitly, his wife and daughter, of the French pockis, 35 lbs. Scots.”

Grunbeck and Brandt, who wrote on syphilis in 1496, when speaking of the diffusion of the disease at that early date over Europe, both allude in very vague and general terms to its having invaded France, Germany, etc., and reached as far as Britain.[613] But the earliest specific notice of syphilis in England which I remember to have met with is in 1502; and in this notice the malady is spoken of under the same name that I have been adverting to, of “French pox.” The notice in question is contained in the interesting Privy Purse Expense Book of Elizabeth of York, the queen of Henry VII., edited by Sir Harris Nicolas. This charitable lady seems from these records to have had several protégés under her immediate care and keeping. Among these protégés is entered John Pertriche, one “of the sonnes of mad Beale.” There are various articles of expenditure noted in the Queen’s private expense book as lavished upon this John Pertriche during the currency of 1503; as monies for his “dyetts,” for buying “shirtes,” “shoyn,” and “hosyn,” “cloth for a gown,” and “fustyan for a cote” to him. There are twenty pence expended “for his lernyng;” and the last two items in the account record attempts of two different and rather opposite kinds to amend the mental and moral deficiencies of this hopeful youth. These two ultimate items are—

“For a prymer and saulter (book to John), 20 pence.” “And payed to a Surgeon whiche heled him of the Frenche pox, 20 shillings.”

To finish this very rough and meagre sketch, let me here add that by the end of the sixteenth century—and perhaps long before that date—the malady was abundant enough in England. Writing in 1596, or in the time of Queen Elizabeth, William Clowes, “one of her Majesties chirurgians,” observes to his “friendly reader,” “If I be not deceived in mine opinion, I suppose the disease itselfe was never more rife in Naples, Italie, France, or Spain, than it is in this day in the Realme of England.”[614]