Names WEE commonly knowing whence we had it call it the French Pox. They for the same reason for none take pleasure to owne it intitle it the Neapolitan Italian or Spanish They again whip the vagarant give it a passe-port and send it to the place of its birth calling it the Indian disease Some again observing how ill it is taken by each Nation that it should take the name of its Sire from their Country have found or made a name for it from its first quarters commonly and will have it called Pudendagra But what word bearing no modest English Translation we without slurring any other Nation as making them reputed fathers of the common Bastard and knowing our selves do choose rather to call it the Venereous disease or in contradistinction to the Variolae the Greaâ— Pox. And there is no lesse dissent and clashing amongst Authors of the first note in defining its nature than in assigning its name which comes to passe by the deep silence and darkness of the Antients in that they had no light from the Fathers of Physick to slay and be a Basis to their thoughts And therefore I shall take my liberty also and give you its nature and beeing thus CHAP. III. The Definition THe Venereous disease is A praeternaturall Affect or Disposition of man's body primarily and of it self hurting or offending the Naturall Operations and thence the Vital and Animal from a cause or reason occult or unknown I call it an Affect or Disposition not in a strict sense as opposed to Habit as if I thought it easily removed but in a large and genrall sense such as may imply Habit as well as Disposition For this Disease in weaker and more depravable constitutions becomes so rooted and hath committed such waste in the Vital and Animal spirits and induced such an Atony on the whole Microcosm as may admit Palliation but not Cure I call it Praeternaturall in opposition to naturall ordinate and preserving dispositions And Of man's body for there is no disease of man's body this excepted but is common to them with beasts but this befalls mankind onely more lustfully insatiate than the beasts themselves I say farther That it hurts and offends the naturall operations it being proper to such as labour under this disease that some naturall operation be offended And I call them Naturall retaining the old received distinction in opposition to Vital and Animal as arising from the Vegetable faculty which the Stoicks called Nature amongst whom Nutrition Augmentation and Generation are contained and such other operations as arise from and are subservient to them Now there is a three-fold hurt or offence done to any operation viz. Abolition Diminution and Depravation And in this disease the operations are evidently depraved I do not say they are not diminished but they are alwaies depraved and as far as they are diminished it comes on them by depravation Then I say Primarily and of it self because though the Vital and Animal operations be also and speedily offended yet it is Secondarily and by reason that the naturall operations were first offended and so not as Animals and Vitals but as Natural bodies have they their first injury Lastly I say For or from a cause or reason occult and unknown To distinguish this from other diseases concerning whom it appears whence how and when the operations are iujured either by dissolution or corruption or some other manifest way But how this disease wounds the operations is very obscure and we hardly find words to expresse what we conceive of it And though in the disease ulcers and gummy tumors do appear and other loathsome symptoms as in the Chapter of Signs more at large yet these are not the disease it self much lesse the causes but the effects I deny not that the effects do appear and oft do where the true nature reason and causes thereof lie in the dark If I should call these ulcers and tumors the disease by a Metonymy yet even in them is found that which reason but imperfectly much lesse sense can know For we do not find them cured by such remedies as give the effect by their first or manifest qualities or by any remedies taught by the Antients but by other remedies and such as are new and were unknown unto them Neither let this seem strange to affirm that there are diseases whose nature cause and formall reasons lye obscure for the evidence of this is prepared and plainly made out to our hands by learned Fernelius De abditis rerum causts from the Monuments of the Antients And thus much for the description of the Disease Venereal If any object that I have penned a Treatise to make a disease better known to my Countrymen labouring under it or in danger of it and that I do in the issue resolve all in rationes incognitas occult operations which are ignorantiae asyla I answer That of many things we know the quod sit not the cur sit When the Objectors can give me the reason of the strength of the Neather-jaw of the Load-stone's work and impotency of the Compasse its variation and stupor of the motion of the Sea and Winds of the production of the Stone and Worms of the forms and their transmutations in bodies mixt of the causes and reasons of operations in pestilent diseases By that time I shall further satisfie them Qui nil dubitat nil didicit maxima pars eorum quae scimus est minima pars eorum quae nescimus Shall the learned'st Lights of the Apollinaean Art called to set forth the causes and reasons of the Stone and Worms in the severall parts ventricles and cavities of the body and being urged by stresse of argument fly to defend their opinions to Spiritus lapidescens lumbrificans as the Essicient cause and Materia lapidescibilis lumbrisicabilis as the Materiall Shall those Heroes in shewing the reason of pestilent and malignant cacoethicall diseases fly to a cause quae agit tota substantia the Asylum ignorantiae Then what excuse or plea could my ignorance and madnesse have if in so learned an age I should tell the world in print that I knew any thing so comprehensively as that I were ignorant of it in nothing Whereas there are more depths of nature in a little Gnat then the learning of the World shall ever attain in this mortall state And he hath gone far in knowledge that knowes his owne ignorance And hee 's unworthy to know more that is ashamed to consesse it And so much by digression From the Definition I shall come to the Subject of this disease and then more distinctly to the Effect it self which though they have been touched in the Definition yet being most considerable parts require a particular hand CHAP. IIII. The Subject of the Venereous Disease AND that I take to be the humors and spirits primarily and by their circulationâ— and dispersing themselves throughout the body there is no part secure from being
through the ecstasy of lust much inflame themselves after saciety are speedily and at one coition infected But they that soon withdraw and are lesse inflamed are not so easily stung 4. They are soonest infected that most burn in lust and are with the horse more violently carried to coition by a sperm-fire And hence it is that so many of the younger sort are so soon infected For when heat of youth and heat of lust more turgent by spermatick and too liberall diet meet together there is a great flame which makes them fearlesse of a worse and greater The like may be said of them qui rarò venere fruuntur for when they obtain their desires they go on violently and so are the sooner infected The reason is because a great conflux of stimulating spirits fall into the genitalls by whose heat and rage the spermatick waies are much dilated and so set the more open to the poyson Quest 8. Some move the Question Whether a woman carnally known by a venereous man and remâ—ining her self as to sense at least uninfected may yet infect him that next approacheth her Answ Some hold the Negative because Nemo dat quod non habet and therefore it hardly finds credit that a person uninfected should yet infect another But to hold the Affirmative is to maintain that which is neither impossible nor irrationall It is evidenced already that this Lues may lurk in the body many years in the humours and cavities and therefore let it not seem strange if in coition it defile others We have the story in Avicen of a young woman nourished up with poysonous diet who was never poysoned her self and yet poisoned all that had carnall use of her You have another president in plague-times of cats and dogs who not being infected themselves carry the infection to others So that the Affirmative is no absurd assertion Quest 9. whence comes it to passe that at the beginning when this disease came newly into Europe it was so formidably raging but now is became much more mild and lesse destructive Answ There were many causes conspiring that at first made this disease more fierce which at this time ceasing or abating their activity it is reasonable the disease should remit The causes that made the disease so formidable at first were 1. Affrighting novelty new and fierce symptoms whereof they neither understood whence they arose nor to what degree of afflicting they might ascend So that men being terrified by this novelty and ignorant of the power of their enemy became spirit-faln and their bodies not having the benefit of the counsell and courage of their minds were delivered up captive to the disease to do what it could on them And this was one reason why it became so formidable For as in times of Pestilence that disease affrights most at first so they are in most danger which are most cast down and trampled on by their own fears Whereas the more careless and confident having all the help strength and defence of courage and resolution that the generous governing mind can give are so much the more secure So is it in this case And this also is the reason why the body in sleep is more subject to the inclemency of the aire for not being governed by the mind it is wholly delivered up to the piercing aire it being of it self able to make no resistance and therefore men are then most subject as we phrase it to take cold which let them observe who sleep in their day-cloaths without superstrate coverings 2. At the first breaking in of this disease apt remedies were not found out to arm men against the rage of it The vertues of those Indian-Simples whence the disease came were not known and when they were found it was looked upon as a blessing dropt down from heaven and the Inventors blessed 3. When apt Simples were found they were used by most in practise without weighty reason so that for want of method to direct their use those remedies not onely proved fruitlesse to some but to others hurtfull Bodies ill handled with acute medecines become more defiled 4. All enemies in their avaunt shew themselves most formidable Time was when the Yex or Hicket produced dreadfull effects the Neezing which we look upon as a remedy was once a disease so deplorate that by-standers terrified with it brought in that custom of praying over them Christ help c. which custom prevailes to this day So we read of the Mentagra and Gemursa diseases at their entrance fierce which afterwards became more remisse And this leads me to the next Question Quest 10. What the reason should be that though this disease be generally milder yet on some it appears very cruell Answ Hereof may be assigned many reasons 1. Either the disease finds weak bodies full of corrupt humours bodies passively disposed and hereby it becomes the more tyrannous 2. Or the disease is a relapse and finds nature yielding and renued and ingeminated diseases ever appear worst 3. Or other diseases fallen in are joyned with it one disease drawing on another his congenerate and diseases the more complicate the worse 4. Besides the new disease falls in when nature is weak low and languishing so that its expulsive ability cannot keep out or drive off the diseases new nor old Quest 11. Whence comes it to passe that this disease falls most sometimes on the hairs sometimes the nerves sometimes the bones sometimes the fleshy parts Answ Because they are more disposed and propense to receive it or because they do lesse repell it Hence it is that when and where the flesh is weak and doth lesse resist which ariseth of many causes then it falls on fleshy or musculous parts And the like may be said of all the rest That which Physitians say of the Feavour-heat that sometimes it falls on the humours sometimes on the spirits and sometimes on the solid parts as they are more disposed to inflammation or do lesse resist that flame may as truly be affirmed of this disease Quest 12. Some move the question Whether there be any region or people amongst whom this disease is more spreading And the reason why they move it is because it is observed of old that there are diseases which have spread some Countries for speciall reasons and aptnesses in the natives as the Elephantiasis in Egypt the gout in Attica the Dracunculi in Arabia the Aphthae in Syria In Aethiopia was a disease that sent out of their bodies winged lice and out of the same perforations grew a strange scab which held them till death Ans To give resolution to this question know That all diseases which distinctly befall some Countries more than other do arise either from their diet or from some evill conjunction of humors in and thereby inclinations of that people or from some winds that bring contagious vapours by inspiration assaulting them or from the temper of the aire impressed by Influences The scab of
choice 4. I observed also that all pretenders to Physick gave out a more than ordinary skill in the Venereous Cure yet scarce one patient of ten went off from them sound as by relapse it too ordinarily appears I was therefore led to believe that either the ignorance of the disease or shamefac'dnesse to discover it made them carry it about them too long or the ignorance of such as they applyed unto or the impatience of Patients to bear a cure gave the disease this advantage For though by palliation the dolorous symptoms wâ—re baffled yet the virulent cause was left in the dark deep in their spirits and bones and made future work for the Physitian Hereby their Patients are deceived who not being able to judge think better of their recovery than is meet and safe and find by sad experience that the next evoking season the disease getting strength by lying in trenches breaks forth more dangerously than was its first onset 2. My scope therefore in publishing this little Treatise is to present a good office to my Nation by entring the lists with this Champion who by trampling on such eminent members of it abates its grandure and bids defiance to all the boast of Remedies in the Common-wealth of Physick Therefore since publicos in hostes quilibet homo miles I sent out my Scouts that I might acquaint my selfe with the enemy in all his motions I enquired after an Army that would not run untill they had broken his pride I considered how I might cut off provisions supplies râ—cruits and finally how I might engage the Enemie's whole body untill I had cleared him of all the coasis and quarters of the Microcosm Whereby I conceived I should deserve well of my suffering Country-men by not suffering the grandure of the Nation to lie trodden under the foot of a proud stranger and I stand by as an idle spectator And since this Enemy plaies small game also and is come down so low as on the Spinster I have therefore made him speak plain english not without due respect to modesty and better understandings that ordinary capacities may be able to judge of their owne condition by their owne light and in season look out for reliefe before captivity and the further enervation of a valiant Nation 3. The advantagious use of these papers either respects all that having been in unknown Hypocausts have any reason from perusing this Treatise to suspect their bodily condition to deal prudently for themselves by seeking reliefe in season Or especially such as intend marriage and the blessings of it that they get them bodies made fit for marriage For though they know their owne personall integrity yet what lurks in their humors from parent's seed or nurses milkâ— they are ignorant of And however no present symptoms thereof discover it to themselves much lesse to others yet the fomes of it oft and long lying obscure doth traduce a present defilement in generation to posterity And by marriage-duty that latent disposition is urged to break forth the sooner and will without such stimulation make it self known in time And though the pursuance of this Advice may question their Honour yet it provides for their owne and posteritie's safety which all wise men highly value I have read many Authors on this argument and found satisfaction in none or this Treatise had been silenc'd I perceive that on this as on other Subjects they too much tread in the steps of their Ancestors and rest in their dictates without further enquiry swelling their volumes with transscriptions into their owne methods which serves to fill Libraries with much paper yet few Bòcks But every man's breath will smell somewhat of his diet and after-ages can but inventis addere which hath been my endeavour throughout And though I write in English that all may know their condition of body as is fit yet have I not set bogglers at work on the Therapeutick part of which they are uncapable If in this service I am accepted then maist thou ere long expect another Treatise Of the Scurvy if an abler Pen which were very acceptable or want of leisure prevent mâ— not Wherein the Presse hath failed thou maist excuse but wherein I have erred or come short if the more learned shall candidly correct or supply it tending to the advancement of health and of the Common-wealth of Learning shall be friendly taken by Thine health-Servant J. W. LUES VENEREA Wherein its Names Nature Subject Causes Signs and Cure are handled The mistakes in these discover'd rectified and many Doubts and Questions succinctly resolved CHAP. I. The Praeface THat Africk is never without some new Monster nor England without some new Disease as strange monstrous is a truth that needs no proof But the proper reasons hereof are hard to find and doe lesse appeare Some send as far as the Starrs and accuse the inclemency of their influences Others go no farther then the Kitchen and accuse our diet of too much variety and change from the plainenesse of the Antient healthier times our new inventions of Spermfiring Cookery But a Christian looks yet higher to the displeasure of God at the new and horrid sins of man acted by the body chastised and marked out by new and unheard-of diseases of which this is one Before the yeare 1493. this disease never gave a visit to Europe kept its own region in the then unknown Western world where it was Endemical Thence as 't is storied the followers of Chr. Columbus returning brought it and gave it to the Italâ—an women and they to the French Souldiers at the siege of Naples Sua simul pudenda et pudendum morbum communicà runt After that siege the French returning brought it to those â—hat were or should be their wives from whom they received a malevolent benevolence And when it was come so near us we that delight to imitate the French tooke their faults and their fashions together And this disease liking this fertile Soyle amongst us brought forth a dreadfull encrease Brassavolus observed long since 234 severall differences accidental he meanes and amongst us scarce in two severall bodies hath it the same face and phaenoms so strangely in the effects and symptoms did it soon appear and therein the wrath of God And that this is to be looked on as the most considerable cause of its grouth in France and Italy and plentifull spreading amongst us we shall easider that when first this Pest began to break out there and became more spreading of late here the wickednesse of man encreased Great warrs and of long continuance were moved by mighty Nimrods heat of blood brought forth heat of lust the insatiability whereof was punished by this new Pest But not to stay the reader on the provoking cause or the avenging hand I shall next lead him to the best Definition of this disease that I can finde that it may appear by its Essence after I have given it its name CHAP. II. The
of and belonging to the animal and rational faculty And therefore I conclude Not the Genitals not the Liver not the Head but the Humours and Spirits are the true and proper subjects of this disease of which I had not so much enlarged but for that it is importantly necessary to be known to direct how the Cure is to be specified and determined CHAP. V. What the Affect is which is seated in the Humours c. IF you enquire what that Affect is which is seated in the Humours and Spirits I say it is no other than a distemper If What distemper a hot cold moist or dry I say it may accompany any one every one of them and yet be another thing different from them For the character of this disease is a certain degree and manner of distemper which we have not words to expresse Neither therefore must we flye to a fourth kind or species of diseases amongst whom to place this to the Antients unknown who have left us the acknowledgment but of three kinds though they knew a kind of diseases that offend after a secret manner for they knew the biting of a mad Dog of which they could give no sufficient reason and yet they did not constitute another kind besides the three usually received for Modus aut gradus non variat speciem That there is in this Disease a degree and manner of distemper above that which is Elementary appears in this that there are certain effects and impressions of it that cannot be reduced to any manifest Distemper The operations arise from the Temper and they are injured or offended by Distemper As therefore perfect operations proceed from a like degree of Temper so also operations eminently offended are thus offended by a like degree of Distemper Also we find that this Disease is cured by remedies that do not cure manifest Distempers yet if they restore the operations it is necessary that they restore the Temper But seeing they do not as curing this Disease restore the manifest Temper it followes that they restore a degree of Temper that we cannot expresse and that they take away a like degree of Distemper superinduced by this Disease This also is to be considered that this Disease may lodge in every Distemper for in practice we find that men of cold Distemper as well as hot and some of dry and marasmodicall bodies as well as the moist and succulent are taken with this Disease So that this Distemper may joyne with any with every Distemper It is evident therefore that the Character of this Disease is another degree and manner of Distemper super-induced besides that of their owne formerly introduced And this consideration also in of great moment that in receiving this disease by Contact as in the next Chapter at large this degree and manner of distemper wherein it consisteth is introduced after the manifest distemper is induced yet so as that there is no great space of time rather a priority of nature then time between the degree impressed and the distemper which though at the beginning it may be disjunct from all proper matter yet most commonly it is joyned to and conveyed with and in matter And if not alwayes so yet while it corrupts the humours and spirits bowels and members it becomes the cause of begetting this corrupt and depraved matter tough and viscous sanies which is by degrees propagated in the humors and spirits throughout all the bowels and members And this is the manner of producing and deriving the Venereous disease which the next Chapter will more fully clear CHAP. VI. Of the Causes of the Venereous Disease NOw we shall enquire into the Causes producing this Disease which are either Externall or Internall The Externall are all comprehended under Contagion and that is either Immediate or Mediate Immediate contagion is when there is an immediate Contact between the bodies infecting and infected Mediate when some other body cometh between which receiveth the infective vapour and conveyeth it to the body that is to be infected as the aire Either the common aire or that portion of it that by the infector is breathed out and by the infected is received in Now that this disease cannot be contracted by the medium of common or outward air is evident for then multitudes that dwell in places and neighbourhoods of venereous persons as it falls out in times of pestilent contagion would daily be infected especially they that domesticaly cohabit and kindreds mostly would be much endangered which experience doth not confirm So that this good hath the Venereous plague beyond the other that it keeps more at home and doth not cast forth so strong a seminary of contagion though Fracastorus an Author of no mean rank thinketh otherwise Neither is it conveyed by aire breathed out and received in for then they that talk mouth to mouth with the Venereous and especially such as apply remedies to the ulcers of their mouth must needs be infected which is not found It is true the Tabes of the lungs communicateth a seminary of to the aire breathed out so that they which are apt to receive that disease drawing it in are endangered But not for it self but as accompanied with an Hectick Feaver But of this disease it is not observed So that all mediate contact being rejected it followes that onely by immediate and corporeall contact this disease is conveyed And hereby I understand carnall use of a venereous person sucking venereous milk or herditary disposition from the seed of venereous parents which Plautus in Amphiter calls Contagio The true manner then how this disease is contracted is no other but this as hath even now bin shewed either by generation lactation or mutuall attrition of bodies whereby defiled spirits mixed with the pure communicate a degree and manner of distemper together with a prava proluvies induced or produced which running up and down the body infecteth the bowells onely in some and in others the members also but in some not being resisted as in Answer to the Questions shall be made appear The Internall cause of this disease is no other but Ichor sanies quaedam prava having their proper leaven in them communicated and tenaciously adhering to the humours and spirits Why this Sanies is propagated sometimes and in some sooner in others later many causes may be alledged 1. The latitude or straitnesse of the seminall passages for in wider pores and passages this Illuvies is more easily drunk in Where the way is strair the disease doth seldomer and more hardly propagate it self 2. A greater or lesse plenty of humours as in bodies more or lesse moist-3 Greater or lesse disposednesse of the bowells and members to receive or resist the contagion And hence is it that they which have loose flesh and abounding with humours their vessells being large and open-mouth'd are soonest tainted first the humours then the genitalls next the mouth for these causes and other reasons before expressed You
may observe that men of dryer harder and colder bodies are lesse subject to this disease as labouring men poor men old men I have read it observed that the Turks are not easily infected herewith though they have alwaies amongst them venereous captives of both sexes and the reason suggested is for that their bodies are more hard and drie and consequently their genitalls And thus much for the causes whereby you may perceive how this disease deriveth insinuateth and propagateth it self Now forasmuch as no Argument can be set forth so clearly as to leave no darknesse or doubts in the mind of the Reader especially in this branch of it touching the Causes I shall therefore farther endeavour his satisfaction by solving such Questions and Doubts as may yet beclowd him CHAP. VII Doubts and Questions Resolved touching the Causes especially 1. QUest Why may not Venereous contagion be conveyed mediately by the aire since we find asserted before touching the Tabes of the lungs and by venerable Authors of the Ophthalmia that it sends out spirits infecting the air which the same air retaining for a certain time and distance communicateth by contagion to the eyes of others And if it be so in these cases why may not from the ulcers in the mouths of the Venereous infecting-vapours be sent out into the aire and that again infect others as well as in the Opthalmia and Tabes Answ This disease lyeth primarily in the humours and naturall spirits for so I may call them and they are more grosse and lesse moveable cannot be emitted or darted out of the body or if they should would take weak impression upon the aire The vitall spirits indeed are more subtile and may passe further and therefore diseases primarily in them have a more flagrant seminary to impoison the air Yet if this disease be accompanied with a feavour as in time and grouth it will that may put stings into it and render it mediately contagious Quest 2. May not the contagion be conveyed by Garments as some have thought Answ No for if the aire cannot receive it so as to convey it from person to person much lesse other externall bodies which should receive it from the air For qualities communicated to the aire are altered and changed by further mixture and change of fleeting aire and so lose their morbifick force Quest 3. May not kissing the Venerous pledging them out of the same cup sitting next after them on the same stool close-stool lying after them on the same bed bed-cloaths convey the infection Answ The contrary hath been proved that no mediate contact can of it self convey it for if the air or garments cannot for reasons expressed much lesse solider bodies as close-stools and cups leight contact of lips c. And if they should then would this disease be much more spreading and cohabitants with the Venereous unavoidably be infected so that Pest-houses were as necessary for these as for the Leprous antiently and of late for the visited with the plague of Pestilence And although this diseased usually be a gentleman yet common safety were preponderous to any man's private quality Quest 4. May a woman bring this Disease upon her selfe by prostituting her body to many clean and uninfected men Ans To affirm this doth suppose brothelry debauched brothelry to be of late edition in the World or at least in those places or regions where not withstanding the Venereous Disease never had a footing Quest 5. May sperm oft injected by coition with the same or severall clean Persons clogging the expulsive faculty of the Womb cause such a putrefaction as that her Humors become venereously corrupted and so the disease be produced Ans No for if clean seed extravasate by not being expelled the Womb should cause such a putrefaction as to render the person Venereous then seed long detained and kept in the seminary vessels and there corrupting and putrifying the cause of the most leonine Histericall fits as is commonly asserted should have much more causality to produce this disease But this cannot be granted and therefore not the former Quest 6. What is the reason that this Disease which in some persons for some years lurketh in the body so as no signe of it appears yet that at length it should discover it selfe and break forth in great rage Ans The venome of the biting of a mad Dog lieth for some years in the body of some man without any signe discovering it which all Physitians after Hippocraâ—â—s acknowledge and yet neither he nor any of the Ancients understood the disease So may this Lues But the manner How and reason Why is most worthy to come under Consideration I said before that this proluvies is viscous and therefore tenaciously adheres to the bowels and is mingled with the humors and spirits but because evidence of its presence cannot clearly and by manisest effects be shewed but on solid bodies which this venereous Illuvies doth find bowels so strongly spirited as that they make great resistance and refuse it and obtrude it into the bycavities of the body where it lies fermenting the disease resideth especially in this Venereous Illuvies and is not communicated to the outwards parts So that when how and where this disease begins acts and creeps on is not perceived There are workings and alterations and morbifick sensations in the body which are not at all in strong constitutions and in others not perceived by their proper causes and are of tentimes attributed to other than their owne So that if you put together the time wherein the bowels resist the Venereous poison and the time wherein it worketh insensibly together with the time of the bodies state neutral it may amount to a year many years before the effects symptoms and evidences undoubtedly discover the disease present Quest 7. How comes it to passe that sometimes and to some at one coition with the Venereous this disease is contracted yet others can scarce be infected at many Ans This must be ascribed to many causes 1. To the various dispositions of bodies for some are more prone to this or that disease and therefore take it sooner for nature makes lesse resistance Which also is the reason that they which have any weak part of their bodies do receive a disease sooner in that part For example let a man that hath the gowt be taken Venereously and he shall find it more to prevaile and afflict him in his feet So on him that hath weak eyes if this disease supervene his eyes are sooner and more afflicted than other parts 2. Carelesnesse sordidness in neglecting their own bodies is another cause For they that rightly and rationally cleanse themselves after coition are scarcely and seldomer taken of this disease But they that having no care of themselves do suffer the Illuvies to cleave unto them are sooner and more fiercely taken of it 3. Long stay in carnall coition makes much to infection for they that welter in unclean bodies and
Aethiopia the Dracunculi of Arabia which the Ancients mention came on them by their excesse in diet for they were a voracious people and especially from their feeding on Locusts which depraved their constitutions The gowt of Attica arose from their full and delicious diet and much venery We read also of Winds which brought the causes of sicknesses as the south Wind from Africk to Europe and some Winds barrennesse to Women So that all Endemicall diseases proper to regions arise either from a corrupt usage of those Countries or from the temper of the aire But this disease hath no such rise adjuvant causes I deny not so that it cannot be peculiar to any region but seeing it is gotten by contact especially that of coition I say it is most peculiar to those Countries Cities Families Persons that are most addicted to Venery And so I come from the Causes and such doubts as arise thereupon unto the Signes CHAP. VIII Of the Signes Diagnostick THe signes of this disease are either Diagnostick or Prognostick Diagnostick or such as discover the disease present besides those which have been scattered in the precedent Chapters may from the accidentall differences of this disease the essence being alwayes the same be rallied in this order as they flow 1. From the rise that one is haereditary and native another accidentary as by a soul bed a venereous Child to the Nurse or a venereous Nurse to the Child 2. From the age of it that one is begun another growing a third consummate 3. From the symptoms that one is more vehement another milder 4. From the sex 5. From the age of the patient 6. From the constitution 7. From the usages 1. From the rise for if the Countenance do not plainly speak the disease as by paint it may be much silenced yet it will give occasion to enquire whether they have not been carnally joyned to the venereous whether they have not been informed or had reason to believe that they descended of venereous parents one or both or had a venereous Nurse or she a venereous Child These may make the matter probable and prevent or strengthen other enquiries Otherwise the signes discovering are not certain and infallible but suspitious and conjecturall 2. Signes from the age of the disease fall under three Heads either as it is 1. Begun for at entrance they are all obscure and general and much common with other diseases as wearinesse without labour overthe whole body moveable pains in the head and body heavinesse or sloathfulnesse of all instruments of motion unlustfulnesse after sleep the colour of the face changing and growing darker If it entred by a defiled bed heat and sharpnesse of urine smart in the genitals heat in the reins dulnesse sadnesse 2. Growing on virulent running of the reins green yellow or towards black pains swellings soft tumors of of the privities one or all with increasing anguish Sometimes a little feavour without any great signes of putrefaction akeing of the periostia or by the bone pains increasing in the evening and later part of the night and enraged by the heat of the bed a little cough urine becomn sabulous pale smelling strong and rancid spermaticall matter floating on it ordure foeculent of various forms and colours towards green yellow black not onely in divers but in the same stool 3. Consummate and Confirmed are coldnesse of nature desirous of the fire a continued and setled pain of the head in some part of it tumors ulcers about the head flaccidity loosnesse of flesh and rottennesse of the privities tumours ulcers or both of the mouth which are sometimes crusty sometimes purulent sometimes callous whorsenesse of voice speaking through the palate or roof of the mouth and nose not opening their mouths wide to speak as formerly and finding it painfull so to do falling down of the nose and a stinking breath from the cariosity thereof falling of the hairs especially of the eye brows sometimes a painfull flying humour from the brain to the haemorhoid-veins and thence a recurrence to the brain hard knots in the legs arms neck or all rottennesse of the periostia and bones tumours and sharp pains about the cheek-bones ringing of the ears clefts of the hands feet and grievous tormenting pains throughout the whole body which becommeth emaciate appetite being decayed and concoction much weakned dimnesse of sight the colour of the eyes changed having lost their brightnesse and agility become slow of motion stinking loathsome slimy sweats tophous knots like those of the gout the colour of the skin becomming still more darksome squallid and like the countenance in a black Jaundies Buboes swelling out in the Inguina and sometimes falling in flying from place to place especially of the Emunctories Most commonly it appears in this order First by acrimony and sharpnesse of urine virulent running of the reins and sometimes not which is seldom This flowing women oft mistake for the Whites whereby the disease is let grow on unperceived Then pustules appear arising first about the genitalls next swelling gums knots Thence crusty sores white in the midst and red round about which being broken give case Then pains of the Head in the evening increasing After that buboes about the Inguina growing as big as Eggs. Then Tophous knots At length Ulcers of the Nose palate and cruell pains 3. Signes from the symptoms which ever at beginning are milder and afterwards more fierce This is the reason why the patient neglects the best season of Cure governing the care of his health by sense of pain which creeping on insensibly makes him think the distemper will spend it self and so wear away 4. Signes from the sex for the weaker sex have some benefit above the stronger to abate the disease by Child-bed and monthly clensings but a greater mischief by the passive and receptive formation of their bodies lodging virulent sperme and being of more soft and spungy bodies are more apt to receive contagion and have weaker humors and spirits to resist and repell the same And hence it is that the signes and symptoms before mentioned on themâ— do become more fierce and dolorous 5. Signes from the age of the Patient As more years are an advantage against infection old men do not so easily receive it and the signes and symptoms do not appear so fierce so have they thereby a greater disadvantage for if they are once seized it seldome departs but with Life 6. Signes from the constitution and temperament The Cholerick are soonest tanged the Melancholly most afflicted the sanguine make best resistance to infection and are best Cured the Phlegmatick have it lying longest in their humors all which must be taken into Consideration when you examine upon the signs before mentioned Lastly From the Usages The tender and idle take it soonest are most afflicted and with greatest difficulty Cured Contrarily laborious and dry bodies And thus you have a Catalogue of the signes not all for that were endlesse