The next question is, are gonorrhœa and syphilis identical? Certainly not, any more than the very many modifications of generative sores. It is absolutely, now-a-days, a difficult question to solve, whether this or that be syphilis; so numerous and yet so closely in resemblance are the ulcers that ensue after sexual cohabitation. The eye is not to be trusted, because so different is real from spurious syphilis that the French surgeons decide the point by inoculating a healthy portion of the body with the matter or discharge from what they suppose to be a syphilitic ulcer. If a corresponding ulcer be produced, the disease is decided to be syphilis. If, on the other hand, no result follow, the patient is proclaimed free from that malady, and stated to be laboring under merely common local irritation. What is still more curious is this: a patient will have ulcers, which every medical man will pronounce, on beholding, to be chancres; yet, upon this trial, the inoculation will not evince them to be so. A while after, supposing the chancres to be healed, secondary or other symptoms will show themselves—sore throat, spotted skin, glandular enlargements, or painful joints, follow. The same consequences oftentimes ensue after gonorrhœa. The primary diseases can not be identical, because the symptoms are vastly different, and the parts attacked are also unlike; and yet there is this anomaly, that the after-consequences frequently closely resemble each other. Another surprising result from loose intercourse is, that one female will convey to this individual gonorrhœa, to another syphilis; a third will escape scatheless, and a fourth will have a modifiable affection of both diseases. A satisfactory exposition of the why and wherefore such things should be, or are, is I fancy beyond the skill of pathologists. It is enough to know that they happen; and it is better to use those means which past and daily experience furnishes to get rid of them, than to ponder and wonder in the vain endeavor to explore their origin. In giving an opinion that we have always been liable to fever, to cut fingers, and to syphilis, I am ready to admit that these several conditions depend upon the varied states of health of the parties. The fevers (ensuing upon the ill-ventilated places) of olden times, compared with those of the present day, differ in intensity and frequency, because the causes are neither so numerous nor severe. The cut finger of a drunkard, and one of otherwise feeble health, is more likely to fester, and even mortify, than should the accident befall a temperate and healthy individual; and the syphilis (or diseases simulating it) at the present time is less severe than formerly, owing to greater attention being paid to personal cleanliness, and the simplicity and earliness of the treatment.