the sole direction of the case. The distinguished patient was now eighty years of age. On the 19th of February, 1841, the appearances threatening scirrhus had changed; hæmorrhage had begun, the tumors had diminished in size and were less painful. The report of this date, shows improvement in vision and general health; and diminution of pain. March 16th. The fungus which at its greatest size had been three inches in circumference had been reduced to a small tumor which was visible only on drawing down the under lid; the eye moved freely in the orbit, and the power of vision was restored. April 22d. The tumor had so far diminished that only a slight projection on the lid remained. The Marshal was employed in his usual duties, exposing himself to "a low temperature, and again in the increased heat of the sun. He continued in his former mode of life, without any injury to the eye. The disease was regarded as cured, and no further reports were required."

The remedies used during the treatment of the Austrian Fieldmarshal's case are recapitulated by Dr. Hartung in his communication of June 12th, 1841. They were: Arsenicum 10°; Psorin 10°; Herpetin 10; Carbo-animalis 10°; and Thuja-occident. He observed "that the first three remedies aggravated the disease." He then prepared Thuja 10°, one drop in three ounces of distilled water, a tablespoonful three times a day. "The first day appeared all the symptoms that his Excellency had occasionally suffered for years; as: headache in the right side of the forehead, cough, particularly at night, slight diarrhoea, pain in the kidneys, with a sandy sediment in the urine, itching, and a reddish rash-like eruption on the inner side of the thigh; the night was quiet, with the exception of the cough. The second day the feelings were the same, but when pointed to they were gone away like a breath. Third day no more pain; itching in the inner angle, secretion of a milky and rather cream-like moisture on the whole extent of the fungus. After this the eye was moistened with the solution of Thuja every two hours. On the fourth day there was no pain; the secretion increased; the fungus appeared to be diminishing; fifth, sixth, and seventh days, no pain. The secretion increased, the lower part of the fungus diminished, to the astonishment of all who had previously seen it. On the eighth day after the first use of the Thuja I gave Carbo-animalis 10°, 3. Effect first and second days as after the Thuja; the pain in the forehead appeared, only it extended itself to the left side, and to the ear, like a breath passing over. The secretion continued; no pain in the eye. The third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh days, no headache; the secretion continued. I now every morning touched the protruding fungus with a fine pencil, moistened with the fourth dilution of Carbo-anim. The Thuja was continued on the circumference. The fungus diminished, and the eye retreated

within the orbit." By continuing these two remedies in alternation every eight days, in the course of a month and a half the whole fungus had disappeared, and the eye moved as well as the other in its orbit. At the same time various other constitutional symptoms disappeared. The Field-marshal continued in good health to extreme old age; and sent a public testimonial of gratitude to his physician.

GENUS VII.-LUES.-1. SYPHILIS.

This disease was unknown to the Greek and Roman physicians, as no allusion is made to it by any of their medical authors, historians or poets; and much discussion has taken place respecting its first introduction into Europe. All the modern authors who first described it, (collected by Luisinus, Astrue, and Girtanner) in the latter years of the fifteenth century comment upon it as "morbus novus," "morbus gnotus." Peter Pinctor traces the origin of the disease to the time of the conjunction of Mars, Venus, Jupiter, and Mercury, A.D. 1483, at which time he thinks this disease must have originated; but Fulgosi dates it at October, 1492; Sanchez and Hensler in 1493. Others contended that it originated in Hispaniola. It is certain, however, that it was first distinctly recognized, says Dr. Simpson, of Edinburgh, during the invasion of Italy by the victorious army of Charles VIII. of France; and it first broke out extensively at Naples when the French took possession of that city in the spring of 1495. This army carried the disease with them to France, Switzerland, Germany, Flanders, &c. In 1497, it had reached Aberdeen in Scotland. Six months later the new disease was made the subject of municipal regulation in Edinburgh. Infected persons were banished from the town to the sands of Leith, there to remain "till God shall provide for their health." Those who took upon then the cure of the infected were banished with their patients, and if either should return to the city in violation of the edict they were to be burned on the cheek with a branding iron. James IV. who was then king of Scotland was much engaged in experimental researches after the philosopher's stone, or the "quinta essentia," and was withal learned in the arts of medicine and surgery. In his practice of surgery he was more liberal than any philanthropist of our noble profession of these days. He not only bled his patients for nothing, but gave them eighteen shillings Scotch into the bargain. The record shows that his operations were not always successful. One woman with cataract was left entirely blind, for which a partial atonement was made by the usual eighteen shillings, Scotch.

The experience of this king in the treatment of syphilis is not recorded, but the sums of money given by him to patients affected with it are regularly set down to his credit.

Wm. Dunbar, the Scottish poet to the royal household, who preceded Burns by nearly three centuries, employed his genius in commemorating the coming in of the new plague. Gunbrecht and Brandt wrote in 1496, that the disease had already invaded France, Germany and Britain. In 1502, the privy expense book of Elizabeth of York, queen of Henry VII., shows that the benevolent lady paid a surgeon for curing a certain mendicant of the French malady the sum of twenty shillings. During a great portion of the sixteenth century, it was so contagious in some parts of Europe, that it was communicated by lying in the same bed, by the clothes, gloves, money, or breath of the patient. A variety of syphilis also prevailed in Canada some years ago, of so virulent a nature, that it was communicated by the breath and by contact. Dr. Thompson, "thinks it probable that the disease has existed, more or less, and under different grades of severity, in all ages, and that it has thousands of times been originated de novo."

Professor Simpson, from a historical review of the earliest notices of syphilis on record, arrives at the following pathological opinion:

I. That syphilis was a species of disease new to Europe when it first excited the attention of physicians and historians in the last years of the fifteenth century.

II. That it is a species of disease distinct and different alike, first, from gonorrhoea; and, second, from Greek leprosy, (with both of which diseases it has been occasionally confounded); for both of these maladies existed and were abundantly recognized in Britain long before the date of the introduction of syphilis.

III. When the disease first broke out it was regarded by physicians and the public as communicable, and constantly communicated from the infected to the healthy by the employment of the clothes, vessels, baths, &c., used by those suffering with it, and by the slightest contact, or even breathing the same air with them. One of the gravest charges against Cardinal Wolsey when he was arraigned before the House of Lords in 1529, was, as given in the indictment; that "the same Lordcardinal, knowing himself to have the foul and contagious disease of the great pox broken out upon him in divers places of his body, came daily to your grace (the king) rowning in your ear, and blowing upon your most noble grace, with his perillous and infective breath, to the marvellous danger of your highness, if God, of his infinite goodness, had not better provided for your highness," &c., &c.*

For many years after its outbreak sexual intercourse does not appear to have been suspected as the mode of its propagation; the primary affections of the several organs were not noticed as constant symptoms. Their attention was chiefly directed to the secondary symptoms, such as: The hideous eruptions on the skin, the ulcers of the throat, the

* Lancet, 1861, p. 172.

exostoses, and nocturnal pains in the bones, &c. The rapidity with which it spread over Europe led men to suppose that it travelled as an epidemic without waiting for the slow process of communication by contact. It was on the 4th of Dec., 1494, that the army of Charles VIII. entered Rome; they reached Naples February 21st, 1795, and evacuated the city May 20th. On the 24th the Spanish general Cordova landed in Sicily. The battle of Fuornovo was fought July 5th, king Ferdinand returned to Naples the next day. The last remnant of the French army returned to France about the end of the following year. Within less than two years the Aberdeen edict was issued (April 23d, 1497), only forty-eight days after that of Paris, which was dated March 6th. The disease soon swept off vast numbers of the dissolute princes and dignitaries in all countries. The emperor Charles V., Pope Alexander VI., kings and cardinals, princes and bishops, peers and priests, are recorded among its victims. Indeed the manners of the dignitaries of every nominally Christian country were so much worse than the masses were able to believe, that they stealthily transmitted this most loathesome of all diseases so rapidly from one city to another that the malady itself was at first mistaken for a pestilential epidemic. The causes which may have conduced to vary its character at different periods, are numerous; and we suggest the following as a few of them.

It has been observed that exposure of the body to a cold, humid atmosphere, excessive fatigue, changes of diet and of climate, unwholesome food, and neglect of cleanliness, favor the rapid progress and destructiveness of the malady; while a dry, warm and equable temperature, cleanliness, nutritious food, and comfortable lodgings are circumstances which conduce to render it comparatively mild. Thus its violence during the siege of Naples in 1495 may also be explained, when we bear in mind the forced marches, the changes of climate and of diet, and the constant excitement and fatigue to which the soldiers were exposed. The same severity marked its prevalence in the British. army in Portugal, while the natives themselves were but slightly affected, although exposed to similar contamination.

One of our army surgeons recently informed us that the same difficulty was experienced among our soldiers during the Mexican campaign in 1847, and 1848; they contracted the disorder, while the Mexicans experienced but slight inconvenience, although exposed to the same virus. The argument also holds good with respect to sailors who are so constantly subjected to the vicissitudes of temperature, the noxious air of vessels, and the stale, salt provisions used at sea.

May it not, then, be fairly inferred, that whatever causes impair the forces of the organism, serve also to render it less able to resist the deleterious influence of the syphilitic poison?

In regard to the doctrine of Hahnemann respecting the identity of syphilis and sycosis, we agree with Hartmann, that the mass of evidence upon the subject renders it almost conclusive that the two diseases are distinct in their nature. The origin of each is a specific morbid poison, capable of impressing the organism in a distinct and peculiar manner.

Diagnosis.-There are unquestionably a great variety of ulcers which make their appearance upon the genitals, communicated by contact with diseased subjects, which are, nevertheless, not syphilitic, and which will heal over without causing constitutional symptoms, simply by the aid of mild dressings. The true syphilite chancre is now of rare occurrence, but the great majority of those intractable ulcers which are looked upon as real venereal chancres, are nothing more, primarily, than simple non-infectious sores, which have been converted into an unhealthy condition by the abuse of mercury. Who can doubt this fact when he contemplates the dreadful effects which a course of mercury often produces on the healthy organism? who could be tempted, in health to take the enormous quantities of this drug which are deemed necessary for the cure of syphilis? Let the provings of it -let the horrible consequences which its accidental absorption sometimes occasions upon the surface, in the mucous membranes, the bones, the glands and the nervous system, answer. For our part, we would prefer the syphilitic poison itself, rather than the uncontrollable ravages of such an enemy as mercury in allopathic administrations is admitted to be by the fair-minded of those even who most earnestly defend its use.

In order to be fully convinced that many of the effects of mercury are improperly attributed to the action of the syphilitic virus, it is only necessary to regard carefully the symptoms which are constantly presented to our observation in what are called venereal affections, and to notice the opinions of many of the most eminent medical observers. Thus, Sir Astley Cooper in his lectures, used to observe, "do not think that it is a rare occurrence for the penis to be destroyed by mercury; no, a chancre that has remained weeks in a healthy state, shall become irritable, and by mal-treatment, by the injudicious and improper use of mercury shall slough and end in the destruction of the penis; this is not a rare case, and is attributed to the venereal disease, but in reality is an effect of the improper use of mercury." (Castle's Manual of Surgery, p. 280.) The great Hahnemann constantly alludes to the pernicious results of the abuse of this drug in the hands of the allopathist.

There can be no question that those dreadful mutilatious of the penis, of the nose, the palate, the eyes, of the surface of the body, and the nodes and caries of the bones, which we occasionally observe, are all effects of mercury and not of syphilis; and it is in the highest