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recognised in Italy during the invasion of that country by Charles VIII of France, which was scarcely two years after Columbus returned from his first voyage from the West Indies. Charles VIII returned to France in May, 1495, and syphilis, it is mentioned, was generally disseminated on the march home by his troops, composed of his own people, Swiss, German, and Flemish auxiliaries.

I will now refer to Irving's Life of Columbus, composed from the very best materials. At vol. 1, p. 103, when describing the Indians of Hispañola in his first voyage, Columbus says, "they are contented with such simple diet, whereby health is preserved and disease avoided." Columbus brought six Indians with him to Europe, where he arrived in March, 1493, but nothing is mentioned as to their being in any way diseased. He left Spain on his second voyage in September, 1493, arriving at the fort of Navidad, where he had left a small party of Spaniards with orders to be kind to the Indians and ingratiate themselves with them. The reverse took place; many of the Spaniards were of the lowest sort and of most sensual character. They stole away Indian women, forcing them to live with them in the fort; this so irritated the Indians that the fort was besieged and attacked, and all the Spaniards were most probably got rid of.*

Columbus abandoned this locality and proceeded to found the city of Isabella, when his followers suffered much from the climate and fevers; this was in March, 1494, for which period Irving observes that many Spaniards suffered also under the torments of a disease hitherto unknown to them, the scourge as was supposed of their licentious intercourse with the Indian females; but the origin of which, whether American or European, has been a subject of great dispute." Here we have but a supposition, and my firm impression is, that had either of the diseases been known to the Indians, the Spaniards, who were very good chroniclers, would have given some details. We now come to the latter part of 1494, when Pedro Margarite and others ran away from Isabella to Spain. "Some ascribed his abrupt departure to the fear of a severe military investigation of his conduct;

* I will here advert to a singular story, told me lately by Herr, consul for a foreign power to Mexico, as connected with a friend of his, who died at Orizaba. His friend had exposed himself to contagion with a Quarterona. A few hours afterwards the member began to swell, causing excruciating pain; at the extremity there was a crown or ruff of various colours. Herr went for a doctor, who, on examining the patient, said that he must have been with the said Quarterona, who had communicated the same to three or four others, and they had died; that it was his opinion that his present patient would share the same fate-the individual did die in a few days. The Quarterona was arrested and sent to a house of incurables; as to her fate there is no information. Herr informed me that this class of venereal is called the cristalina, or crystallised syphilis; that a few similar cases had occurred in the city of Mexico; and that something of the sort had formerly been known in Cadiz. He also gave me the following as the supposed origin of this cristalina. In 1493, Columbus, ere he left the West Indies to bring to Europe the news of his discovery of the New World, erected the fort of Navidad in Hispanola, leaving some of his followers there. On his return from Spain, he found that the whole of them had been killed or had died. It is said that some of them were affected with syphilis brought from Spain, and gave the disease to the Indian women with whom they had lived, and from these sprung the cristalina, which I think to be very doubtful.

others to his having, in the course of his licentious amours, contracted a malady at that time new and unknown (?), and which he attributed to the climate, and hoped to cure it by medical assistance in Spain."

Let us suppose that Margarite was afflicted with syphilis, there is no evidence that he had contracted it from the Indian female as a disease natural to the country. If he took the disease from an Indian woman, she had, in all probability, been inoculated by a diseased Spaniard; but it is far more probable, if he had syphilis, that he had contracted it in Europe, or from some of his own countrywomen in the colony.

We come now to 1497, when an edict was issued about syphilis at Aberdeen as a disease that came out of France and other strange parts. It was also called the sickness of Naples, the gor, gore, and grangore, a contagious plague afflicting male and female. The terms gore and grangore are of French origin, as-verole, small pox, grande verole, large pox or syphilis.*

In 1500 we find syphilis called in Scotland pokes and Spanyie pockis; but it was generally denominated the French disease. Italians, Germans, and English spoke of it as the disease of Naples. The Dutch, Flemings, Portuguese, and Moors as the Spanish malady; and the Spaniards to this day call it Galico or French disease; but we never hear it quoted as the American disease.

Gonorrhoea was in full vigour in London in 1430, and known as clap or brenning, and its existence spoken of a century earlier. in the time of Richard II.

There can be no doubt that syphilis existed extensively at Naples, and was brought into Western Europe with the return of Charles VIII from that country in May 1495. I may here observe that when Columbus returned to Europe from the New World in May 1493, there is no allusion at that date that syphilis was brought from America. When Sir. R. Alcock was asked by a friend of mine as to the existence of syphilis in Japan, he said it was known as the Portuguese disease, and was common there.

However, as regards the New World, history gives no evidence as to the disease having been brought from there, and the non-existence of both of the diseases amongst those Indians at the present time removed from proximity to the whites and mixed breeds is, to me, a still more convincing proof that syphilis, as it has been well known before and since the end of the 15th century, is not of New World origin. Benzoni, who was very early in the West Indies and in Peru with Pizarro, speaks of the Morbus Gallicus, or French disease. Solazzano, Monarquia Indiana, lib. i, c. 4, p. 24, says it is most doubtful and uncertain that the venereal disease was introduced from the Old

See Des Divinités Génératrices ou du culte du Phallus, par J. A. D., Paris, 1805, p. 291. "On nommait au 15ème siècle, les courtisanes élégantes, gores (gore, a sow), gaures ou gaurières, et les robes decoltées (low-bodied dresses), robes à la grante gore; c'est pourquoi un prédicateur célèbre par ses buffonneries, frère Maillard, s'écrie souvent contre les bourgeoises qui portent des robes à la grant gore."

World into the New. He calls syphilis "the French or Bubatic." Frezier in 1719-14, in alluding to the hospitals in Lima, mentions San Lazaro for the cure of lepers and such as have venereal distemper.

About 1742, the Ulloas, who were very close observers, being at Lima, thus allude to syphilis: "The venereal disease is equally common in Peru, as in those countries we have already mentioned" (they had just come from New Granada and Quito); "it is, indeed, general in all that part of America; and but little attention is given to it until arrived to a great height, the general custom in all those parts." to the Indians, he says, i, p. 420: "Though the venereal disease is so common in the country (amongst the Spaniards and mixed breeds), it is seldom known among them (the Indians), and, when observed, has been communicated by the whites or Mestizoes."

As

Describing Quito, the Ulloas say: "The venereal disease is here so common, that few persons are free from it; and many are afflicted with it without any of its external symptoms. Even little children, incapable by their age of having contracted it actively, have been known to have been attacked in the same manner by it as persons who have acquired it by their debauchery. Accordingly, there is no reason for caution in concealing this distemper, its commonness effacing the disgrace that in other countries attends it. The principal cause of its prevalence is negligence in the cure. Few are salivated for it, or will undergo the trouble of a radical cure."

When first in South America, I was astonished to hear females say (sometimes rather in confidence) of any of their male acquaintances who complained of being unwell, there being no visible sign of illness"pues es galiquente, y quizas de sus padres", he has been syphilised, perhaps, from his parents.

Velasco, in his excellent Historia de Quito, i, 185, says, when speaking of the Indians of that country, " Amongst other diseases, they are free from venereal, which is falsely attributed to them, but brought to the country by the Europeans."

Speaking of the Creeks and Cherokees in the United States, Bartram, who wrote in 1790 (Amer. Ethno. Soc. Trans., 43, 1853), observes that they have the venereal in some of its stages. In some places it is scarcely known, and in none rises to that virulency which we call small-pox, unless sometimes amongst the white traders, who themselves say, as well as the Indians, that it might be eradicated if the white traders did not carry it with them to the natives when they return with their merchandize; these contract the disorder before they set off, and it generally becomes virulent by the time they arrive, when they apply to the Indian doctors to get themselves cured. "I am inclined," says Bartram, "to believe that this disease originated in America (?) from the variety of remedies found among the Indians, all of which are vegetable. I have imagined that the disease is more prevalent as well as more malignant among the northern tribes, because of their closer proximity to the whites. The vegetables are, various species of iris, croton, or styllingra or the yaw-weed, smilax, bignonia, and lobelia syphilitica."

In Wilcocke's Buenos Ayres, p. 412: "The syphilitic disease,

though very common amongst the inhabitants of the Spanish race, is seldom known among the Indians, and then only when communicated by the foreigner."

Stevenson, in his Travels in South America, i, 405, remarks: "With what certainty the origin of syphilis has been traced to America, I know not; but the wild tribes of Arauco (Chile), Archidona and the Napo (Peru), those of Darien (New Granada), and several others, as well as those who live in small settlements among the Spaniards, are totally unacquainted with it; and, although I have been particularly inquisitive on this head, I never could hear of a solitary instance of the disease, except in large towns and cities, and then it was limited to a certain class (prostitutes), where it was likely to be most prevalent."

I now come to a recent writer on subjects connected with the New World, who has again brought the subject of the existence of syphilis in America to our notice, and that it existed there at an ancient date.

In vol. i, p. 181, Hist. des Nations Civilisées du Mexique, par l'Abbé B. de Bourbourg, in detailing the legend of the deification of Nanahuatl, he says: "He is there with the others, but he is sick, he suffers from a terrible and incurable disease; there is nothing now to attach him to life, the joys of which he has drained. . . he throws himself into the flames, and is instantly burnt to ashes." In a note it is stated, "that the disease above mentioned was the American syphilis, which is somewhat different from that of Europe. Original and numerous documents, in the languages of those countries, have proved to us convincingly the existence of this disease in America before its discovery by Columbus."

Upon so important a subject, I should have thought that reference would have been made to these "original and numerous documents"; for without them, that the sickness of Nanahuatl was the "American syphilis", may be very much questioned.

At p. 182 of the same work, the abbé says: "Strange aberration of the human mind! That which was most revolting concerning this deity, the most revolting of matter, to be clothed so mysteriously; the symbols of grandeur and majesty, and the words which express the most infectious corruption of the human body, has even to this day, among a multitude of Indian nations, an analogous state, as that of the most elevated power." This is a most extraordinary paragraph. Had it had to do with phallic worship, we might have understood the affair. However, in a note, a far more extraordinary position of things appears; it is as follows: "In all the Spanish translations of the history of Nanahuatl, he is continually called by the name of 'Buboso'," which the abbé translates "syphilitic". This struck me as rather strange, and I have investigated what I believe to be the true meaning of the word buboso in this case; namely, that it merely comes from the Spanish word buba, a pustule, and that buboso has been applied to the syphilitic swellings in the glands known as buboes, but that this bubo of the aboriginal Mexican Indian was an ordinary pustule or tumour, and not syphilis. The abbé proceeds, having once persuaded himself that this buboso means syphilitic, "The word puz,

which signifies the foul and corrupted matter of this disease, in the tzendal and in the otzile, becomes a verb to signify the sacrifice, and especially that of human victims; it means, also, to enchant, to perform miracles, or prodigies. Puz-nawcal, means enchanter, the great and marvellous man, etc. Galel-ahpop is a princely title, and galelya is a syphilitic. Xogahuah means princess, and tantel yoghuah literally means, she made herself a princess, as well as 'exit ex ea syphilis'. Tepeu means great syphilis, or he who has a great deal of it; gawal tepegal, divine, or the greatest majesty." After this rather hyper-philological dissertation-to me of very little value-the abbé proceeds: "Or is it, that the Spanish ecclesiastics in their catechism, being ignorant of the origin of these words, employed them to express the most sacred things of our religion, in the Quichée and Cakchiquel?" It would take a volume to write all on such matters, so multiplied and varied are they. We have to apologise to our readers for this strange note; but the circumstances have appeared so curious to us, that we have thought it our duty to lay it before the eyes of the learned.*

In a paper by Professor Owen to the British Association, on the Andamans or Mincopies, long isolated from any other people, Dr. Jebb said: “I never met with any one of them affected with gonorrhea, syphilis, intermittent fever, itch, piles, small-pox, goître, or other disease."

In 1831, I became acquainted with Mr. Beale, a surgeon, who subsequently wrote the History of the Sperm Whale. At p. 375 of that work, he says, speaking of Tahiti: "But if Mars had afflicted them so sorely, Venus herself had been less kind than her consort; their intercourse with foreigners had left their diseases, that were depopulating the islands; men, women, and even little children in arms, were suffering from this worst of Pandora's gifts, for the cure or alleviation of which they possessed neither knowledge nor means.” At the period I speak of, I had long communications with him on the subject of the depopulation of many of the islands in the South Seas;

* I have lately had the subject of phallic worship in the New World brought to my notice. My impression had been that it was unknown to the Red Man. However, in a work entitled "Des Divinités Génératrices ou du culte du Phallus", already alluded to, it is mentioned as existing, " dans quelques parties de l'Amérique. Lorsque les Espagnoles firent la decouverte de cette partie du monde, ils trouvèrent ce culte établi chez les Mexicaines." I find that this information is obtained from a work written by a gentleman who was with Cortes, who says: "In certain countries, particularly at Panuco, on the northern coast of Mexico, the Phallus is worshipped (il membro che portano fra la gambe), and they keep in their temples."

The Abbé B. de Bourbourg supposes the Phallic worship to have existed among the Allighewas, Algonquins, and Iroquois; and there is good reason to believe that something connected with this worship has lately been observed among the Mandans. As far as I have at present examined this matter as regards South America, I have not as yet made out the existence of this worship there. Some of the older Spanish writers on the New World speak occasionally of the reported commission of unnatural crimes by the Indians, but about which the evidence is not at all clear. I have seen a few examples of indecent execution in pottery from South America, but of a natural character only.

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