The Plague of Lust, Vol. 2 (of 2) Being a History of Venereal Disease in Classical Antiquity

It has been fully proved in the course of our previous investigations that Asia and Egypt must be regarded as the two focus-points of exaggerated sensual licence, the conditions...

Thus we read in _Herodotus_:[243] “But as often as a _Babylonian_ has had intercourse with his wife, he sits down beside a lighted censer, and his wife does the same on the oppo...

But does all this justify us in casting a stone at our medical colleagues of Ancient times? For the last three hundred years we imagine ourselves clearly acquainted with Venerea...

Nevertheless, then as now distinctions no doubt existed, and probably in Antiquity as at the present day there were districts, whose physical conditions of climate might be rega...

_Boettiger_[139] goes so far as to conjecture that the tame snakes in the temple of Aesculapius, which were also kept in private houses[140] as a plaything of the women, were tr...

But what would follow supposing traces _were_ actually to be found proving that what was known in Asia as leprosy did as a matter of fact first show itself in the genitals? Befo...

The majority of Writers however are agreed that among other occasioning causes ulcers hold the first place,[412] though none of them speak expressly of ulcers of the genitals, u...

No doubt _Hensler_ and _Alex. Simon_ had already struck out this second way of exposition; but the latter writer merely examined the data of the several Writers by themselves wi...

Finally, as to ῥινοκολοῦρος (nose-docked), for which the MSS. also have ῥινοκλοῦρος, it is certainly the case that in Antiquity the man who practised vice with strange women (_M...

To assume that Hippocrates was actually acquainted with these in any completeness would up to the present be premature; at any rate we are bound, so far as our study of his writ...

(Then the tall Galli, and the one-eyed priestess with her sacred rattle, instil terror of _the gods that make men’s bodies swell_, unless three times at dawn you have eaten the...

But in proportion as the exciting cause grew ever more and more common, the _cunnilingue_ being now no longer contented with girls, but employing for the satisfaction of his sha...

Unfortunately hitherto these two kinds of influence exerted by the genius epidemicus have been only too often confounded, and no adequate distinction drawn between epidemic dise...

[321] _Julius Firmicus Maternus_, Astronomica bk. III. chs. 7 and 8., In loco octavo ♀ ab horoscopo constituto ... si ☿ cum ea fuerit vel cum ☿ Venerem in hoc loco positam, male...

Though we cannot exactly subscribe to Alexander Simon’s declaration to the effect that it would fill whole volumes, if we wished to cite systematically and in full all that has...

[157] _Palladius_, Lausiaca historia, ch. 39. in Magna Bibliotheca Patrum (Great Library of the Fathers), Vol. XIII., Paris 1644. fol., p. 950.: Οὕτως δὲ γαστριμαργῶν καὶ οἰνοφλ...

παραινεῖ· κοινὰ δὲ ἀνέωκται ἀνδράσιν ὁμοῦ καὶ γυναιξὶ τὰ βαλανεῖα· κἀντεῦθεν ἐπὶ ἀκρασίαν ἀποδύονται· ἐκ τοῦ γὰρ εἰσορᾶν, γίνεται ἀνθρώποις ἐρᾶν· ὥσπερ ἀποκλυζομένης τῆς αἰδοῦς...

(Nor yet utterly villainous is he, but he has discovered yet another device; for he polluted his own tongue with foul delights, _in the stews licking up the abominable dew_, def...

[85] _Wendelinus Hock de Brackenau_ entitled his Treatise on the Venereal Disease: _Mentagra_, sive Tractatus de causis, praeseruatis, regimine et cura Morbi Gallici, vulgo Mala...

Anchors for footnotes 373, 379, 383, 391, 392, 394, 404, and 406 were missing and have been added in appropriate places. The footnotes are located at the end of the book.

As to the _local_ determinations, those defining the places, to which such or such information given us belongs, are extremely scanty, and such as they are, we owe them mainly t...

[22] _Suidas_, s. v. _μυσάχνη_, ἡ πόρνη παρὰ Ἀρχιλόχῳ· καὶ _ἐργάτις_ καὶ _δῆμος_ καὶ _παχεῖα_. Ἱππῶναξ δὲ _βορβορόπιν_ καὶ ἀκάθαρτον ταύτην φησίν. ἀπὸ τοῦ βορβόρου καὶ _ἀνασυρτό...

[200] _Thucydides_, Peloponnesian War, bk. II. ch. 49., Διεξῄει γὰρ διὰ παντὸς τοῦ σώματος ἄνωθεν ἀρξάμενον τὸ ἐν τῇ κεφαλῇ πρώτον ἱδρυθὲν κακόν· καὶ εἴ τις ἐκ τῶν μεγίστων περι...

[333] _Galen_, De loc. affect. bk. I. ch. 5., εἰ γοῦν ὑμενώδους χιτῶνος ἐκκριθείη μόριον, ὅτι μὲν ἕλκωσίς ἐστὶ που, δηλώσει.... εἰ δ’ οὐρηθείη τῆς οὐρήθρας αὐτῆς. (If for exampl...

(’Tis winter time, and the shuddering chill of December is upon us. None the less, Linus, you dare to greet with your frosty salute all men you meet here and there, and to kiss...

[233] _Stoll_, Praelectiones in diversos morbos chronicos, (Lectures on certain Chronic Diseases), Vol. I. p. 96, writes as follows: Antiquissimum cum _Henslero_ pronuntiavi, at...

_Pathics_, signal of invitation employed by, 143, condition at Athens, 120, kept in the Roman brothels, 124, had to pay Prostitution-tax, 126, 231, characteristics, 169, dress,...

[291] _Galen_, De locis affect. bk. VI. ch. 5., edit. Kühn Vol. VIII. p. 422., φαινομένου δὲ σαφῶς, ἰσχυροτάτην ἔχειν τὴν δύναμιν ἐνίας τῶν οὐσιῶν, ὑπόλοιπον ἂν εἴη ζητεῖν, εἰ δ...

[172] _Joannes Leo_, “Descriptio Africae”, (Description of Africa), Leyden 1632. 12mo., p. 86., Paucis admodum toto Atlante, tota Numidia totaque Libya hoc notum est contagium....

[128] _Mutilus_, κολοβὸς, κόλος, the special expression for beasts that have lost one or both horns. Thus _mutilus aries_ (a mutilated, hornless, ram) _Columella_ de R.R. VII. 3...

[413] _Galen_, loco citato p. 887., ἐχούσης δὲ τῆς τοιαύτης τὸ μῆκος μεῖζον τοῦ πλάτους, ἐγκάρσιον ἔστω τὸ μῆκος ἐπὶ τοῦ βουβῶνος, οὐ κατ’ εὐθὺ τοῦ κώλου· καὶ γὰρ κατὰ φύσιν οὕτ...