During this period, Barcelona was revisited by pestilence, which lasted from the 13th of June until the 4th of October. That the venereal disease was not introduced from America into Europe this year, by means of the troops of Admiral Christobal Colon, is a point which has been already demonstrated in history. Astruc exhibits great erudition in showing that the disease was not known before the years 1494 and 1496. In the list of writers of the kingdom of Valencia, furnished by Vincente Ximeno, we learn that a Pedro Pintor was born in that capital A.D. 1420, and died at Rome in 1503: he was physician to Alexander the Sixth, who was also a Valencian, having been born in the part called Xativa. From the historical writings of Pintor, and of contemporary authors, it seems evident, as suggested by Dr. Sanchez, that the venereal disease, during its first prevalence, was a pestilential fever, which was communicable through the genitals, and otherwise; and that at that period there was no discredit or stigma attached to those who were afflicted with it: it was not considered to be _contra bonos mores_. The Valencian author, following up the astrological notions of his time, attributes the disease to the same causes as epidemic plagues or pestilences. During the vernal equinox of this year, this description of pestilence broke out in the city of Rome, as is gathered from the following quotation: “Talis autem epidemia in urbe Romanâ contigit anno 1493 mense Martii, post introitum solis in primum minutum Arietis.” This disease was first noticed in the month of August. Pedro Pintor, according to Cotunnius, professor of anatomy at Naples, was amongst the earliest writers upon the venereal disease: his work, entitled ‘De Morbo Fœdo his temporibus affligente,’ was published at Rome A.D. 1500. He attributed the origin of the disease to a conjunction of the planets, and no doubt he was acquainted with the circumstance of the disease being propagated by cohabitation with a diseased person. Several of the inhabitants of Rome were attacked A.D. 1493, and the disease became common there until 1499; it principally attacked the limbs with excruciating pains and pustular eruptions, against which the physicians employed mercurial ointment mixed with lead,--an invention said to be due to a Portuguese. So rife did the pestilence become, that, according to Ruy Diaz de Isla, a native of Andalusia, their majesties Don Fernando de Aragon and Doña Isabel de Castilla gave instructions to their physicians to attend to those stricken with the disease, who were received into the hospital of San Salvador. Great numbers of the first professors and physicians of the land investigated the symptoms of the disease, and after treating it with the thousand and one remedies thought of with but little success, it was considered to be a chastisement from Heaven which befel all constitutions and conditions.