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skimming as it were the surface, he found a Roman coin of the Emperor Domitian, covered only by a few inches of the soil. Here was

a proof that for the last 1800 years the cavern had been undisturbed. A few inches deeper a portion of an axe was found; it had no doubt (on account of its weight) gravitated the few inches. A hammer and a knife blade were also found under similar circumstances. From the discovery of these articles, he inferred that they had conclusive evidence of the occupancy of the cave during the Roman period; if not by the Romans themselves, at least by some tribe of the wild Brigantes having intercourse with them. Starting, then, with the assumption that the physical aspects of the cave existed in the time of the Romans, under much the same conditions as they do at present, it follows, as a matter of course, that the deeper they went, if any traces of human occupancy were found, they would be of an older race. At the depth of about four feet he found a portion of an ox rib, formed into a knife, or similar instrument. Professor Busk, who had kindly determined all the bones submitted to him, has marked it as being cut or sawn with flint.' He next exhibited another portion of a small rib, from the same level as the preceding one; it bore unmistakeable evidence of human manufacture, probably being an arrow-head. A singular bone relic accompanied it, of which Professor Busk said, 'This is a metatarsal bone of the pig, young, made as I think into a whistle. The reason I think so is because the whole of the interior is cleared out, which would not be the case were it merely to be hung on a string as an amulet. Though not made exactly in the same way, yet many similar bones converted into whistles have been found in the south of France belonging to the reindeer period.' Other fragments of bone with human handiwork upon them were found, but in so fragmentary a state that the sculptured design could hardly be made out. At the distance of a few feet from the entrance, there occurs a large block of stalagmite formed by the droppings from the roof; upon breaking into it there was found at a considerable depth, a layer of charcoal closely embedded, and a few bones, but so comminuted that only one portion of the under jaw of the pig could be determined. Under a thin bed of stalagmite, a little to the left side of this bank, was a boar's tusk, and a little to the right, under the same conditions was found a portion of the large red deer's horn. Near the same place there occurred the frontal bone of a human cranium, with a portion of the nasal promontory intact, and in close proximity the right and left parietals joined by the suture. About the centre of the cave, and at a depth of from six to seven feet, were found two unmistakeable stone implements, they are of the rude, unground type, and similar to those found in the oldest bone caves."

The thanks of the meeting having been voted to the authors of the Paper,

Mr. G. E. ROBERTS said he had not been able to bring the flint implements found in the cave for the inspection of the meeting, neither had he been able to obtain part of the bones mentioned as having been submitted to Prof. Busk. All the other specimens of bones that had

been collected were on the table. The chief interest which these relics from the bone cave possessed, consisted in their showing many successive periods of occupation by human beings. It was conjectured that the Roman coin and the implements of iron had fallen through the roof of the cave at a subsequent period to its occupancy. They were found near the surface of the cave earth, and bones were discovered at successive depths till the stalagmite flooring was arrived at; and even in that formation some bones were found. It was probably a cavern of rapid accumulation and not of very great age; but it was important to state the results of the exploration of any cave containing the bones of man or animals that had occupied it in early periods of human history. Among the bones were a number referable to the badger, which were found at the very bottom of the deposit. They were stronger and longer than those of any typical badger of the present day. Mr. Roberts further stated, in reply to questions put to him, that he did not know at what depth in the cave-earth the pottery was found. The flint implements were of the ordinary type, of the rudest manufacture, rough and unpolished.

Mr. CARTER BLAKE said the human remains found in this cave differ in several important respects from those generally discovered in caverns in the north of England, and still less did they resemble those in the Heathery Burn case in Durham, where the human bones found indicated that they were those of men of a lower type. These differed from them, however, in the development of the frontal sinus, which in most of the skulls was entirely suppressed. These remains were apparently those of a distinct type of man to those from Heathery Burn; but judging from the large quantity of animal matter that was present in the bones, he considered that they could not be of very great antiquity.

Mr. JOHN MIDDLETON explained the discovery of the cave by two labouring men in the first instance, and the difficulty which was experienced in gaining access to it.

On Human Remains from Peterborough. By C. CARTER Blake, F.G.S., F.A.S.L., and GEORGE E. ROBERTS, F.A.S.L.

Mention is made in the Register of Peterborough of the importation of the plague from London in 1665-6. The burials of persons who died took place in a field near the town, still called the "Pesthouse Close." In making a new road, a great number of these bodies have been dug up; they appear to have been interred without coffins, and with no regularity. The two skulls which we have obtained possess slight cranial variations from ordinary types, sufficient to render one, at least, of interest.

No. 1. This is a skull, long and dolichocephalic in form, without marked elevation of the parietal tubers. The curve of the frontal bone is equable in its direction, and is evenly continuous along the sagittal suture until about its middle, where it becomes depressed, in the mode which M. Pruner-Bey alleges to be common in Celtic skulls;

a flattened, and even concave space extending on either side of the posterior third of the sagittal suture, this depression apparently not being due to parietal occipital flattening. The supraoccipital bone has its upper contour, at the lambdoid suture, elevated high above this depression: the lambdoid at the same time not exhibiting either peculiar complexity, or any tendency towards wormian ossifications. Slight traces of suture extend below the upper half of the supraoccipital bone on the left side; beneath which the occiput shelves gently away to the lower semicircular ridge; and beneath is flattened in its course to the foramen magnum. The upper line of the squamosal forms an equable curve, its anterior bones being at its connection with the alisphenoid, raised to a higher level than the greatest part of the above-named bone, especially on the left side. The zygoma are slender; but the mastoid processes and digastric fossæ are well marked. There is no supramastoid, nor are there paroccipital eminences. The palate is smooth and flat, the incisive alveoli not strikingly prognathic; the nasal bones are slightly flattened. The orbits are quadrate; the upper inner angle of each being well elevated. No teeth are in place.

The lower jaw indicates age; the coronoid process is rather high, extending far above the condyle. The attachments for the masseter are well marked; but the depression for its reception is not strikingly deep. The molar series is entirely absent on the left side; traces are shewn of one shattered tooth (m 1) on the right side: alveolar absorption has removed the rest of the series. All the other teeth are in place. Their erosion is not great, nor is there any trace of caries. According with the proportion of the skull, the lower jaw is slender in form.

No. 2. This skull, evidently that of a male, differs from No. 1 in the large proportions of its muscular attachments, especially of the mastoid, upper semicircular, and supramastoid ridges. The temporal ridges are also well marked, and the zygomæ large. Both these skulls are, however, aphænozygous. Large supraciliary ridges, and a strong glabellar eminence overhang moderately deep supranasal excavations. same postlambdoid elevation we noticed in skull No. 1, also occurs in the present skull. The maxillaries and large portions of the facial bones are broken away.

The

The lower jaw is large and powerful. The coronoid process less elevated than in No. 1. The molar teeth in place exhibit the forms characteristic in European teeth.

Mr. ROBERTS stated that he brought the skulls and the bones on the table from Peterborough, and that they were collected from a number of others which had been thrown out. Among the human remains there was a specimen of a jaw-bone, in an exceedingly fine condition, discovered in digging in a stable at Wribbenhall, but how it came there he had no idea.

The PRESIDENT observed that the whole of the collection of bones and implements had been presented to the Society through the influence of their very zealous member Mr. Roberts.

On the Alleged Introduction of Syphilis from the New World. Also some notes on the Local and Imported Diseases into America. By WM. BOLLAERT, F.A.S.L., Cor. Mem. Univ. Chile; of the Amer. Ethno. Soc.; of the Ethno. Soc., London, &c.

IN 1825, when at Buenos Ayres, and observing that both gonorrhoea or blennorrhagia, and syphilis* were very common among the white and mixed portion of the population, I made inquiries as to whether these diseases were met with among the Indians of that country. I was informed, as far as was known on this point, the Indians were free from them.

In the autumn of the same year I was weather-bound in Nassau Bay, just behind Cape Horn. The Indians there were nearly naked, a few only having a little piece of seal-skin over the shoulders; and although there were signs that foreign shipping (as sealers and whalers) had been thereabouts, I saw no indication of either disease.

The latter end of the year I arrived at the port of Valparaiso, where there are certain localities called "Tops," the residence of the prostitute population, frequented by sailors of all nations, and there could be no doubt that syphilis and gonorrhoea were rife. I then travelled about the central portion of Chile, but did not learn that the Peons, or labouring population (Mestizos) were afflicted with either disease. For some years I resided in Peru, and visited Bolivia, but heard of no cases amongst those Indians, who lived distant from the whites, mestizos, or mulattos. However, among the whites and mixed breeds the diseases were very common.

In coming from Peru to Chile by land, along the shores of the desert of Atacama in 1829-30, I met some Indian families known as Changos; I did not notice the disease amongst them. I went then among the Araucano Indians, and neither saw nor heard that they were so afflicted.

In 1831, I was for some weeks in the Straits of Magellan, and had good opportunities of examining both sexes, when I observed what appeared to me to be syphilitic sores (chancres) among some of the women, and gonorrhoea among some of the men. I had no doubt that they had contracted these diseases from the crews of sealers and whalers who visited this portion of the continent; and it was a well known fact that Indian women had often been stolen away by said

A medical friend gives me the following. "The true etymology of many of the words used in describing some of the forms of venereal disease is somewhat obscure, e. g. the origin of the word syphilis is uncertain; but I venture to suggest, under correction, that it might be derived from the Greek word oveap—a slough, or cast-off skin, also the wrinkled skin of an old man (or from σipλos, unclean). If this be so, it points to the constitutional nature of the malady. Chancre is from the French, which in turn is from the Greek кavкipos, or cancer, alluding to the primary and external disease. Blennorrhagia is from Bλerva, mucus, and pew, to flow. Gonorrhoea is from yon, semen, and pew, to flow, and I should suspect has, in its pure sense, a reference to gleet, in the chronic form of the poison."

whalers and sealers, kept on board for a time, when doubtless the diseases had been communicated to them by Europeans.

In 1840-2, when in Texas, I visited many tribes of Indians of that country, as well as remnants of tribes which had fled from the United States, but observed neither disease among them. In 1854-5 I was again in South America, and neither saw nor heard of the disease among the pure Indians. Whilst amongst the white people and mixed breeds, particularly in the cities and larger towns, syphilis and gonorrhoea were very common.

So far my own experience as regards South and a portion of North America.

I will now briefly allude to some historical accounts on this subject, particularly as regards the Old World. In the Aphorisms of Hippocrates, 400 B.C., and in the Sentences of Celsus, 400 years after Hippocrates, as found in Sprengell's translations, in 1708. When Sprengell alludes to his own added Aphorisms "On the French disease," he says, it was just known to former more temperate ages, and, in a note, how far it was known in former ages, he refers to Ecclesiasticus, c. 19, v. 2, 3. Hippocrates, III.; Epidemics, iii., 41, 74, 59, and i. De Morbus Mulierum, 127. Galen, lib. iv.; Meth. c. 5, and lib. i. De Gener., c. 23; lib. iii. Epidemics, sec. 3, com. 25. Pliny His. Nat., lib. 26, c. i. Avicen, lib. 2. Valesius; Rhodius; Vigonius, Lib. de Morb. Gall., c. &c. And that it does not, according to the vulgar opinion, derive its origin from Naples, France, East or West Indies. Josephus, c. xi., p. 108, says, when on the subject of purification, that Moses ordered those who had gonorrhoea should not come into the city.

We hear of syphilis, or that it began to be very prevalent or made public in Europe in the latter years of the fifteenth century. The idea has been thrown out in our own time that it might have been long previously known in a milder form. It is said there was ground for believing that syphilis was brought into western Europe on the return of the crusaders. There were seven crusades to the Holy Land from 1099 to the reign of Edward I, about 1272.

In Dr. Simpson's valuable Memoir regarding the appearance of syphilis in Scotland, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (see Trans. Epidemiological Soc. London, 1862) he alludes to Peter Pinctor's assertion that syphilis was well known in 1483. Now, if this were so, added to what we know about a contagious disease known in very early times as the Morbus Mulierum, then the bringing of the disease from America on the return of Columbus in his first voyage, which was in March, 1493, just ten years after the period mentioned by Peter Pinctor, must I think be given up by those who have merely supposed that syphilis was originally brought from the New World by the Spanish dis

coverers.

Fulgosi, in his Grüner's Aphrodisiacus, p. 115, gives 1492 as the date of its general appearance in Europe, which is a year before the discovery of the New World. It was, about 1493, generally thought that the diseases had sprung up spontaneously and endemically in Italy, France, and Spain. If, however, in 1494-5, it was distinctly

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