The Plague of Lust, Vol. 1 (of 2): Being a History of Venereal Disease in Classical AntiquityRosenbaum, Julius
History
The Plague of Lust, Vol. 1 (of 2): Being a History of Venereal Disease in Classical Antiquity
Rosenbaum, Julius
Sexually transmitted diseases -- History
MALADIES OF THE GENITAL ORGANS AT LAMPSACUS 41
PLAGUE OF BAAL-PEOR 49
BROTHELS AND COURTESANS 64
PAEDERASTIA 108
DISEASES CONSEQUENT ON PAEDERASTIA 126
THE ῥέγχειν (SNORING, SNORTING) OF THE INHABITANTS OF TARSUS 133
Νοῦσος Θήλεια (FEMININE DISEASE) OF THE SCYTHIANS 143
BIBLIOGRAPHY: AUTHORITIES AND HISTORIANS 257
INTRODUCTION.
Conception and Contents of the History of a Disease in general.
If we would undertake to write the history of a Disease, the very first
thing needful is to frame in one’s own mind a clear conception of what
the History of a Disease in a general way is, for it is from a right
preliminary conception, that the right conditions will follow which
a Historian as such is bound to fulfil. Consult experience,—in other
words enquire what has been usually understood under the name History
of a Disease, and you find to be included in the idea,—first, a more or
less complete chronological comparison of the different observations
and views of different Physicians at different times on such or such
a Disease, secondly, a survey of the course of the Disease in the
individual case. The first is properly only a history of the opinions
of Physicians, the History of the Literature so to speak of the
Disease, which must come before the _actual_ History, while the latter
is nothing else than a history of a Disease in a single instance, that
is to say the history of a particular case of disease, the history
of individual patients; and this we have long been in the habit of
reckoning a part of Clinics.
Nay, the _sum_ of such clinical histories if taken all together will
not help us to the actual history of a Disease, so long as they merely
give an account of the visible symptoms by which the disease makes its
presence known. By this means we shall be learning merely the ideal
course of the Malady, getting a pictorial representation of it such
as is demanded by Pathological specialists,—as it were the _internal_
history of the Disease. We cannot write the history of a single Man or
of a single Nation so as to be a sufficient basis for the understanding
and right appreciation of them, if we grasp only their inner history,
that of their _internal_ development, and consequently view them by
themselves as a something separated off from all surroundings, instead
of bearing in mind as we should the forms their relations take to
environment, to the outer world generally,—in fact their _external_
history. Similarly we are just as little in a position to furnish the
history of a _Disease_, if we include in the matter of our enquiry only
the course of the disease and not its external relations as well.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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