In the course of the preceding remarks I have had occasion to adduce seven or eight different notices with regard to the appearance of syphilis in various cities and districts of Scotland during the years 1497-8, as at Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Stirling, Linlithgow, etc. A diversity of allusions to the same disease, of a less direct and official character, and somewhat later in date, may be traced in various olden Scottish works and writings. The malady is occasionally alluded to, for example, in the reports left us of some of the old criminal and other trials of Scotland. Thus a minute in the Records of the Privy Seal of Scotland records the punishment of a medical man in whose hands a dignitary of the church had died while under treatment for syphilis. The entry is as follows:— January 18th, 1509.—“Respitt made to Thomas Lyn, burges of Edinburgh, for ye slauchtir of umquihile Schir Lancelote Patonsoun, chapellain, quhilk happinit be negligent cure and medicine yat ye said Thomas tuk one him to cure and hele ye said umquhile Schir Lancelote of ye infirmitie of ye Grantgor yat he was infekkit with. To endure for xix yeeris. (Subscripsit per dominum Regem apud Edinburghe.)”[605] Some, perhaps, of my professional brethren may think that this nineteen years’ banishment from the town was a proper punishment for an unprofessional charlatan undertaking the cure of syphilis in the sixteenth century; and some, possibly, may even hold, that it would not be an improper proceeding in this—the nineteenth century. The disease is alluded to in some of the old Scotch witch trials of the sixteenth century. One of the most remarkable of these trials was that of a lady of station and wealth—Euphame Macalzane, daughter of Lord Cliftonhall, a judge of the Court of Session. Among other matters, she was “indyted and accusit” of using, during the birth of her two sons, anæsthetics in the form of charms, and a fairy stone “layit under the bowster,” whereby, in the words of the dittay, “your seiknes was cassin of you unnaturallie, in the birth of your fyrst sone upon ane dog, quhilk ranne away and wes newir sene agane. And in the birth of your last sone, the same prakteis foirsaid wes usit, and your naturall and kindlie payne, unnaturallie cassin of you uponn the wantonne cat in the house, quhilk lyke wyis wes newer sene thair efter.” In the fourteenth item of her indictment she is accused of trying to break off a marriage by “certane witchcraft,” and by alleging that the intended bridegroom had the “glengore.” For these and other analogous crimes this unfortunate lady was “takin to the Castel-Hill of Edinburghe, and thair bund to ane staik, and brunt in assis, quick to the death.”[606]