Yet another drawback is that up to the present we are entirely without information as to the consecutive order of the series of epidemics in Antiquity, by the indirect help of which alone do the historical factors conditioning Venereal disease become discernible; while so far as appears, there is no reasonable hope of our ever attaining any clearer light on the point. Nay! even if we did possess the information, it could only apply to Greece, Rome and Asia Minor, for as previously pointed out, in countries situated in the hot Zone the _genius epidemicus_ (general consensus of epidemic conditions) is but rarely as a rule strong enough to override the _genius endemicus_ (general consensus of endemic conditions). As much therefore as can in such a state of things be predicated with some basis of reason as not entirely hypothetical may be pretty well summed up as follows:— Diseases of the genital organs developed little by little among nearly all the Peoples of Antiquity known to us at all intimately under the favouring conditions detailed in preceding pages. At the same time in virtue of the large number of counteracting influences they seldom attained to any high degree of intensity, and remained mostly local, taking the form of mucous discharges and superficial ulcers, without provoking any general reaction of the organism. Even when such reaction did occur, it was the skin that felt it, in such a way as to throw off the effects of morbid activity in the form of cutaneous maladies. These conditions lasted usually as long as the different Peoples continued to cultivate mutual exclusiveness; directly they abandoned this, and individual members of different foreign stocks began to combine to gratify an unbridled licentiousness, affections of the genitals not only increased in frequency, but over and above this a malignant character was stamped upon them, with which both the development and the intensity of any particular contagion stood in direct ratio.