It is remarkable that not one, so far as we know, of the authors who have studied the history of Venereal Disease makes any mention of this circumstance; neither do the Pathologists ever bring forward the vice of the _fellator_ as an ætiological factor. _Clossius_[35] it is true speaks of _Irrumatio_, relying on _Perenotti di Cigliano_ and _Fabre_; but these last are really speaking of the _Cunnilingue_, not of the _fellator_. Probably they are of Erasmus’ opinion: λείχαζειν _ni fallor tale quiddam est Graecis, quale fellare Latinis. Nam vox etiamnum manet, tametsi rem iam olim e medio sublatam arbritor._ (λειχάζειν—to practise licking,—if I am not mistaken, is a similar practice with the Greeks to that of _fellation_ with the Romans. The word indeed still remains, but the thing I believe to have long since entirely disappeared). On this however _Forberg_ (loco citato p. 304.) very justly adds: _Vereor ut vere: certe audio, ne ab nunc hominum quidem moribus plane abhorrere id schematis, quid viderint ii, quibus magnas urbes adire licet._ (I fear this is not true: at any rate I am told this sort of practice is not entirely repugnant to the habits of some men even of our own day, to judge by what those see who have the opportunity of visiting large cities). How many primary ulcers of the throat, especially in the case of common Prostitutes, may have been mistaken for secondary ones, and have been treated accordingly, in fact are treated so still, without the Physician having a suspicion of how they were actually incurred! But what the Physicians of our own times are ignorant of, though familiar enough to many of the Laity, this knowledge we cannot reasonably demand from the Physicians of Antiquity. Yet supposing they did actually possess this knowledge, it was very excusable if they looked at what lay nearest before their eyes and regarded all throat ulcers as being primary,—in just the same way as any Practitioner of to-day finds it excusable in a Colleague that he thinks only of secondary ulcers, inasmuch as what in Ancient times happened very commonly is practised at the present day at any rate much less frequently. Consequently the absence of mention on the part of the old Physicians of secondary ulcers of the throat in connection with complaints of the genital organs cannot be considered as any sort of proof of their non-existence.