de consilio medicorum sibi virilia amputare permittitur_. (Cent. I. Cap. 6. de Separatione ex causa Luis Venerea.) And _Mezeray_ says, he has read in the Life of _Philip_ the _August_, that some Men had such Apprehensions of the _Leprosy_, (that shameful and nasty Distemper) that to preserve themselves from it, they made themselves _Eunuchs_. Now it is highly probable that those Persons who submitted to such a painful Operation, having before observed, that those who gave themselves up to a free and unrestrained use of Women, fell at length under such unhappy circumstances; and so found the only measures to preserve themselves from it was to be disabled for such engagements, which sufficiently proves this Species of the _Leprosy_ was infectious; and for the reasons before assigned could be no other than _Venereal_; for how the true _Leprosy_ should be prevented by such means will be, I believe, impossible for any Person to determine. There yet remains one very considerable Symptom of the _Venereal-Malady_ for me to take notice of, because it is looked upon to be the most remarkable in that Disease, which, is the falling of the Nose; but since it has been already proved, that this Disease when it had arrived to such a pitch as to discover it self by those direful Symptoms, as are the immediate forerunners of this, was by the Ancients confounded with the _Leprosy_, and called by that Name, it must be among the Symptoms of that _Disease_ we are the most likely to meet with it, if any such thing as the falling of the Nose was known among them. Now the most likely Method of coming to a certain Knowledge of the Infallible Symptoms of the _Leprosy_ of the Ancients in its more confirmed State, is to consult the Examinations those unhappy Persons were obliged to undergo, before they were debarred the Conversation of Human Society, and committed to close confinement: But this being a thing some Ages since laid aside, no Author that I know of having the particular History of it, I shall do it as briefly as I can from what Remains I have met with in Records, and other scattered Papers. First then, after the Persons appointed to examine the Diseased had comforted them, by telling them this Distemper might prove a Spiritual Advantage; and if they were found to be _Leprous_, it was to be looked upon as their Purgatory in this World; and altho’ they were denied the World, they were chosen of God: the Person was then to swear to answer truly to all such Questions as they should be asked; but the Examiners were very cautious in their Inquiries, lest a Person who was not really _Leprous_ should be committed, which they looked upon to be an almost unpardonable Crime: They considered the Signs as _Univocal_, which properly belonged to that Disease, or _Equivocal_, which might belong to another, and did not, upon the appearance of _one_ or _two_ Signs, determine the Person to be a _Lazar_; and this I find