The workes of that famous chirurgion Ambrose Parey translated out of Latin and compared with the French. by Tho: Johnson. Whereunto are added three tractates our of Adrianus Spigelius of the veines, arteries, & nerves, with large figures. Also a table of the bookes and chapters.

CHAP. II. Of the causes of the Lues Venerea.

* 1.1THese are two efficient causes of the Lues venerea; the first is, a certain occult and speci∣fick quality which cannot be demonstrated; yet it may be referred to God, as by whose command this hath assailed mankinde, as a scourge or punishment to restrain the too wan∣ton and lascivious lusts of unpure whoremongers. The other is an impure touch or contagion, and principally, that which happeneth in copulation. Whether the man or woman have their privi∣ties troubled with virulent ulcers, or be molested with a virulent strangury (which disease crafty Whores colour by the name of the whites) the malignity catcheth hold of the other; thus a woman taketh this disease by a man, casting it into her hot, open and moist womb; but a man ta∣keth it from a woman, which, for example sake, hath some small while before received the viru∣lent seed of a whore-master polluted with this disease, the mucous sanies whereof remaining in the wrinckles of the womans womb, may be drawn in by the pores of the standing and open yard▪ whence succeed malign ulcers, and a virulent strangury. This virulency, like a torch or candle set on fire, will by little and little be propagated and sent by the veins, arteries and nerves to the noble parts; whose malignity a strong liver not endureing, by the strength of the natural expulsive

faculty, will send it into the groins, whereon follow abscesses, therefore called Venereal Buboes.* 1.2 These if they return in again, and cast not forth matter by being opened, will by their falling back into the veins and arteries, infect the mass of the blood by the like tainture, and thence will ensue the Lues Venerea: Yet this disease may be got by a more occult manner of touch, as by breathing only. For it is not altogether besides reason and experience, that a woman long troubled with this disease, may by importunate and often kissing,* 1.3 transfuse malignity into a childe; for the tender and soft substance of a little childe may be altered, infected, and by little and little corrupted by receiving of filthy, and in their whole kind, malign vapors. For it is known, and now vulgarly believed, that mid-wives, by receiving the child of a woman infected with this disease, have got this affect, the malignity being taken and drawn into their bodies through the pores of their hands by the passage of the veins and arteries. Neither doth it spare any condition, sex, nor age of men: for not only whosoever use copulation, but such as only ••ie with them, may be taken with this virulency; yea verily, if they only lie in the sheets or coverings which retain his sweat, or the virulency cast forth by an ulcer. The same danger may assail those who shall drink in the same vessel after such as are troubled with this disease: For by the impure touch of their lips, they leave a virulent sanies and spittle upon the edges of the cup, which is no lesse contagious in its kinde, then the verulency of leprous persons,* 1.4 or the fome of mad dogs. Wherefore it is no marvel if children nursed by an infected nurse, draw in the seeds of this disease together with the milk, which is only blood whitened in the breasts; or infec∣ted su••king children by their hot and ulcerated mouths, may transfuse this malignity into the bo∣dy of the nurse, by the rare, loose and porous substance of the dogs which it frequently sucketh.

This following history is very memorable to this purpose.* 1.5 A certain very good Citizen of this City of Paris granted to his wife, being a very chaste woman, that conditionally she should na••e her own child, of which she was lately delivered, she should have a nurse in the house to ease her of some part of the labor: by ill hap, the nurse they took was troubled with this dis∣ease; wherefore she presently infected the childe the childe the mother, the mother her husband, and he two of his children, who frequently accompanied him at bed and board, being ignorant of that malignity wherewith he was inwardly tainted. In the mean while the mother when she observed that her nurse-childe came not forward, but cried almost perpetually, she asked my counsell to tell her the cause of the disease; which was not hard to be done, for the whole body thereof was replenished with venereal scabs and pustles, the hired nurses and the mothers nipples were eaten in with virulent ulcers; also the fathers, and the two other childrens bodies, where∣of the one was three, the other four years old, were troubled with the like pustles and scabs. I told them, that they had all the Lues Venerea, which took its original and first off-spring by malign contagion from the hired nurse. I had them in cure, and by Gods help healed them all, except the sucking child, which died in the cure. But the hired nurse was soundly lashed in the prison, and should have been whipped through all the streets of the City, but that the Magistrate had a care to preserve the credit of the unfortunate family.

Notes

• * 1.1

  The Lues Ve∣nerea the scourge of Whore-mon∣gers.
• * 1.2

  Venereal bu∣boes returning in again, occa∣sion the Lues venerea.
• * 1.3

  The Lues ve∣nerea may be got by the only communicati∣on of vapor▪
• * 1.4

  How nurses may infect children, and they their nur∣ses.
• * 1.5

  An history.