So, this _lues venerea_, as it is called by Fernel, made numerous victims in all countries. It spread in the towns and throughout the rural districts, and, at times, caused such ravages that, in the large cities, the authorities were obliged to use sanitary measures against the pox, as had been done at other times in the case of leprosy. Syphilitics were expelled from places and forbidden, under severe penalties, from having intercourse with healthy people. But it soon came to be known that contagion could only occur through sexual connection, and the patients then hid in hospitals, where they were specially treated by the methods laid down by the first syphilographers,—vapor baths, mercurial inunctions, frictions, etc. Unfortunately, no prophylactic measures were instituted against prostitutes, although they were recognized as having a monopoly in venereal disorders; for they did not believe at that time, like Jean de Lorme, who said: “The pox may be caught by touching an infected person; by breathing the same air; by stepping, barefooted, in the patient’s sputa, and in many other manners.” Even the poets wrote sonnets, poems and ballads upon this _mal d’amour_ (lovesickness). One could form an immense volume by collecting all the verses written and published on this subject during the sixteenth century. But no poem indited during that period presents so great an interest to medical science as the ballad of Jean Droyn, of Amiens, dedicated to the Prince, in which the author, stronger in the etiology of syphilis than the doctors of his time, advised young men who feared _grosse verole_ (the pox) not to indulge in _liasons_ with girls of the town without first being satisfied with their pathological innocence. This ballad was published at Lyons in 1512, that is to say, seventeen years after the appearance of the disease in the army of Charles VIII., at an epoch when the majority of doctors considered the affection as an infectious malady due to the action of a pestilential miasm in the air. We shall reproduce but a few lines of this poetical-medical-historical document: “Perfumed darlings, dandies, dudes, Take warning in each case, Beware all types of fleshy nudes And don’t fall in disgrace. Sure, gentlemen and tradesmen gay May throw away their money, Give banquets and at gaming play, As flies are drawn by honey. I warn you all of love’s sweet charms, Place on them protocole, For haunting oft strange women’s arms Brings sometimes _grosse verole_. “Let love, with moderation wise, Attend each amorous feast. Let all be clean unto your eyes, Fly all lewd girls at least. Happier and nobler ’tis to gain For virtue high renown Than wound your honor with a stain, With women of the town. Keep out of danger from disease, Good health will you console, But if you strive the flesh to please Beware of _grosse verole_.”