An Attempt to Prove the Antiquity of the Venereal Disease, Long before the Discovery of the West-Indies; In a Letter from Mr. William Beckett, Surgeon, to Dr. James Douglass, M.D. and R. Soc. Soc. and by him Communicated to the Royal Society

IV. An Attempt to prove the Antiquity of the Venereal Disease, long before the Discovery of the West-Indies; in a Letter from Mr. William Beckett, Surgeon, to Dr. James Douglass, M.D. and R. Soc. Soc. and by him communicated to the Royal Society. SIR, The Undertaking I am at present engaged in, has unavoidably obliged me to consult, among others, a great Number of ancient Physical and Chyrurgical Books, written by my own Countrymen: From these I took the Hint, that the Venereal Disease was known among us, much earlier than the Era, which has been generally assign'd for its Rise by modern Authors; for it's believed it was not known, at least in Europe, till about the Year 1494. Notwithstanding which, I determin, in the following Papers, to make it evident, it was frequent among us some Hundreds of Years before that Date. I could mention several Physicians and Surgeons of Eminence, who have been of the same Sentiments with me, particularly, the Learned Dr. Charles Patin, who has written a curious Dissertation to prove the Antiquity of this Disease, which is sufficient to excuse me from the Impputation of having started a Novelty, or being at the trouble of quoting ancient Authorities before taken notice of, from the most ancient Writers of Medicine; as the Great Hippocrates, Galen, Avicen, Celsus, &c. and even the Holy Scriptures. I shall in these and some following Papers, lay aside all those foreign Aids and Assistance, sistance, and trace out the Symptoms of the Disease, as they naturally arise, from the first Infection to the last destructive Period, and shew that, by searching into our own Antiquities, we may be furnished with Instances of the Frequency of the Distemper among us, in all its respective Stages, before ever our Modern Authors dream it had its Appearance in Europe. I shall begin with the first Degree of this Disease, and prove from authentick Evidences, it was anciently call'd the Brenning or Burning; and that this Word has been successively continu'd for many Hundreds of Years, to signify the same Disease we now call a Clap; and that it was not discontinu'd till that Appellation first began to have its Rise. The most likely Method to accomplish my Design, will be first to examine those Records that relate to the Stews, which were by Authority allowed to be kept on the Bank-Side in Southwark, under the Jurisdiction of the Bp. of Winchester, and which were suppressed the 37th of Hen.VIII. For it's impossible but, if there were any such Distemper in being at that Time, it must be pretty common among those lewd Women who had a Licence for entertaining their Paramours, notwithstanding any Rules or Orders which might be establish'd to prevent its Increase: But if we shall find that there were Orders establish'd to prevent the Spreading of such a Disease, that Persons might be secure from any contagious Malady after their Entertainment at those Houses (which were anciently Eighteen in Number, but in the Reign of Hen.VII. reduced to Twelve) we may then securely depend upon it, that it was the Frequency of the Disease that put those that had the Authority, under a necessity of making such Rules and Orders. For the same Powers that granted a Liberty for keeping open such lewd Houses, must find it their Interest to secure, as much as possible, all Persons from receiving any Injury there; lest the Frequency of such Misfortunes should deter others from frequenting them, and so the original Design of their Institution cease; from the entire sinking of the Revenues. Now I find that, as early as the Year 1162, divers Constitutions relating to the Lordship of Winchester, (being also confirmed by the King,) were to be kept for ever, according to the old Customs that had been time out of mind. Among which these were some, viz. No Stew-holder to take more for a Woman's Chamber in the Week than 14d. Not to keep open his Doors upon Holy Days. No single Woman to be kept against her Will, that would leave her Sin. No single Woman to take Money to lie with any Man, except she lie with him all Night till the Morning. No Stew holder to keep any Woman that hath the perilous Insfirmity of Burning. These and many more Orders were to be strictly observed, or the Offenders to be severely punished. Now we are assured there is no other Disease that can be communicated by carnal Conversation with Women, but that which is Venereal, by reason that only is contagious; and it's evident the Burning was certainly so: For, had it been nothing else but some simple Ulceration, Heat, or Inflammation, there would have been no Contagion; and that affecting only the Woman, could not be communicated by any Venereal Congress, and so not inferr a Necessity of her being comprehended under the restraining Article. These Orders likewise prove the Disease was much more ancient than the Date above-mentioned; because they were only a Renewal of such as had been before established time out of mind. But to confirm this farther, I find that in the Custody of the Bishop of Winchester, whose Palace was situated situated on the Bank side, near the Stews, was a Book written upon Vellum, the Title of which runs thus: Here begynne the Ordinances, Rules, and Customs, as well for the Salvation of Mennes Lif, as for to ascheve many Dyschiefs and Inconveniencys that dayley be lik there for to fall owte, to be rightfully kept, and due Execution of them to be don unto any Personne wythin the same. One of the Articles begins thus; De his qui custodiunt Mulieres habentes Nephandam infirmitatem. It goes on, Item, That no Stew-holder keep noo Woman wythin his Hous that hath any Sycknesse of BRENNING, but that she be putte out upon the peyne of makeit a fyne unto the Lord of a hundred Shylyngs. This is taken from the Original Manuscript which was preserv’d in the Bishop’s Court, suppos’d to be written about the Year 1430. From these Orders we may observe the Frequency of the Dislempyr at that Time; which, with other Inconveniencies, was Dayley lik there for to fall owte: and the Greatness of the Penalty, as the Value of Money then was, that is laid on it, proves it was no trifling or insignificant thing. But the bare Proof of there having been anciently such a Disease as was called the Burning, may be thought to be insufficient, unless we were perfectly assured what it was, and how it was in those Times described: I shall therefore do it from an unquestionable Authority, which is that of John Arden, Esq; who was one of the Surgeons to our King Richard II. and likewise to King Henry IV. In a curious Manuscript of his upon Vellum, he defines it to be, a certain inward Heat and Excoriation of the Urethra; which Description gives us a perfect Idea of what we now call a Clap; for frequent Dissections of those that laboured under under that Disease, have made it evident, that their Urethra is excoriated by the Virulency of the Matter they receive from the infected Woman; and this Excoriation or Ulceration is not confined to the Ostiola or Mouths of the Glandula Muscoae, as has been lately thought, but may equally alike attack any part of the Urethra not beyond the reach of the impelled malignant Matter. The Heat before described, which these Persons are sensible of, as well now as formerly, is a Consequent of the excoriated Urethra; for the Salts contained in the Urine must necessarily prick and irritate the nervous Fibrilla, and excite a Heat in those Parts of the Urethra which are divested of its natural Membrane; which Heat will always be observed to be more or less, as the Salts are diluted with a greater or less Quantity of Urine; a thing I have often observed in Persons that have laboured under this Infirmitiy in hot Weather, when the perspirable Matter being thrown off in greater Quantities, the Salts bear a greater Proportion to the Quantity of Urine, and thereby make its Discharge at that Time so much the more painful and troublesome. Thus we see this very early and plain Description of this Disease among us, to be entirely conformable to the latest and most exact Anatomical Discoveries. Here is no Tone of the Testicles depraved, according to Trajanus Petronius; no Exulceration of the Parastatae, according to Rondeletius; no Ulceration of the Seminal Vessels, according to Platerus; no Seat of the Disease in the Vesicule Seminales or Prostatæ, according to Bartholin; nor in those Parts and the Testicles at the same Time, according to our Countryman Wharton and others, who have falsly fixed the Seat of this Disease, and whose Notions, in this respect, are now justly exploded; but a single and true Description of it, and its Situation, about an Hundred and Fifty Years before any of those Gentlemen obliged the World with their learned Labours. Having, I hope, sufficiently made it appear, the Burning was a Disease very early among us, and, given the Description of it, I shall proceed to say something of the ancient Method that was made use of to cure it. We are not to expect the Measures our Predecessors, in those early Times, made use of, should be calculated for the removing any Malignity in the Mass of Blood; or other Juices, according to the Practice in Venerial Cases at this Time; because they looked upon the Disease to be entirely local, and the Whole of the Cure to depend upon the Removal of the Symptoms: Hence 'twas they recommended such Remedies as were accommodated to the taking off the inward Heat of the Part, and cure the Excoriations or Ulcerations of the Urethra. The Process for the accomplishing of this, I shall set down from the before-mentioned John Arden, who wrote about the Year 1380. his Words are as follow, Contra Incendium. Item contra incendium Virge Virilis interius ex calore & excoriatione, fiat talis Syringa (i.e. injectio) lenitiva. Accipe Lac multeris masculum nutrientis, & parum zucarium, Oleum viole & ptisana, quibus commixtis per Syringam infundatur, & si predictis admiscueris lac Amigdalarum melior erit medicina. There is no doubt but this Remedy, being used to our Patients at this Time, would infallibly take off the inward Heat of the Part, and cure the Excoriations or Ulcerations of the Urethra, by which means what issued from thence would be entirely stopt; and this was all they expected from their Medicines, forasmuch as they were entirely unacquainted with the Nature of the Distemper; and did not in the least imagine, but if the Symptoms that first attack'd the Part were removed, the Patient was entirely cured. I shall now, as a farther Confirmation of what I have advanced, proceed to prove, that by this Brenning or Burning is meant the Venereal Disease, by demonstrating that succeeding Historians, Physical and Chirurgical Writers, and others, have all along with us in England used the very same Word to signify the Venereal Malady. In an old Manuscript I have by me, written about the Year 1390, is a Receipt for Brenning of the Pyntyl, yat men clepe ye Apegalle; Galle being an old English Word for a running Sore. They who know the Etymologie of the Word Apron, cannot be ignorant of this. And in another Manuscript, written about 50 Years after, is a Receipt for Burning in that Part by a Woman. Simon Fish, a zealous Promoter of the Reformation in the Reign of Hen.VIII. in his Supplication of Beggars, presented to the King in 1530, says as follows, These be they (speaking of the Romish Priests) that corrupt the whole Generation of Mankind in your Realm, that catch the Pockes of one Woman and bear them to another; that be Burnt with one Woman and bare it to another; that catch the Lepry of one Woman and bare it unto another. But to make this Matter still more evident, I am to observe, that Andrew Boord, a Doctor in Physick, and Romish Priest, in the Reign of Henry VIII. in a Book he wrote, entitul'd The Breviary of Health, printed in 1546, speaks very particularly of this sort of Burning; one of his Chapters beginneth thus, The 19th Chapiter doth shew of BURNING of an Harlotte; where his Notion of communicating the Burning is very particular. The same Author adds, that if a Man be Burnt with an Harlot, and do meddle with another Woman within a Day, he shall Burn the Woman that he shall meddle withal; and as an immediate Remedy against the Burning, he recommends the washing the Pudenda two or three three times with White Wine, or else with Sack and Water; but if the matter have continued long, to go to an expert Chirurgeon to have Help. In his 82d Chapter, he speaks of two sorts of Burning, the One by Fire, and the Other by a Woman through carnal Copulation, and refers the Person that is Burnt of a Harlot to another Chapter of his for Advice, what to do, if he get a Doctor or two, so called from its Protuberancy or bunching out: For I find about that Time the Word Fu'o was mostly made use of, to signify that sort of Swelling which usually happens in pestilential Diseases. From hence it appears, the Burning, by its Consequences, was venereal, since every Day's Experience makes it evident, that the ill Treatment of the first Symptoms of the Disease, either by astringent Medicines, or the removing them by cooling and healing the excoriated Parts, will generally be attended with such Swellings in the Groin, which we rarely observe to happen from any other Cause whatsoever. I shall give a few more Instances of this Disease being call'd the Burning, and conclude. In a Manuscript I have of the Vocation of John Bale to the Bishoprick of Offory in Ireland, written by himself, he speaks of Dr. Hugh Weston (who was Dean of Windsor in 1556, but deprived by Cardinal Pole for Adultery) as follows, "At this Day is lecherous Weston, who is more practised in the Art of Brech Burning than all the Whores of the Stews. And again, speaking of the same Person, he says, "He not long ago burnt a Beggar in St. Botolph's Parish. The same Author says of him elsewhere, "He had been sore Bitten with a Winchester Goose, and was not yet healed thereof; which was a common Phrase for the Pox at that Time, because the Stews were under the Jurisdiction of the Bishop of of Winchester. Mich. Wood, in his Epistle before Steph. Gardiner's Oration de vera Obedientia, printed at Rhean, 1553, gives another Evidence of the Burning. And William Bullein, a Physician in the Reign of Queen Eliz. in a Book he publish'd, call'd The Bulwark of Defence, &c. printed in 1562, bringing in Sickness demanding of Health what he should do with a Disease call'd the French Pockes, Health answers, "He would not that any should fishe for this Disease, or to be bold when he is bitten to thynke thereby to be helped, but rather to eschewe the Cause of thyss Infirmitie, and filthy rotten Burning of Harlots. I believe, by this time, I have sufficiently prov'd what I proposed, that the first Degree of the Venereal Disease was very anciently known among us, under the Title of Burning; and that you may lose no more Time at present upon this Subject, I shall reserve my Collections, which shew that the Disease, when it came to be confirmed, was no Novelty here in those early Times, for a further Opportunity, and detain you no longer than to express my Pleasure in professing my self, Yours, &c. London, Feb. 4. 1717-18. Will. Beckett. V. Accuratarum Observationum Astronomicarum, anno superiore & currente, cum Reg. Societate communicatarum Sylloge. Interest sane Scientiae ne pereant Observata Astronomica, debita cura fidisque instrumentis ab Artificibus idoneis caelitus deprompta: Hoc enim solo fundamento nititur Urania practica. Itaque in his Transactionibus,