We have never yet succeeded, though we have before now expended much time on the effort, in getting a clear grasp of the ideas the Ancient physicians intended to express by the different designations they gave to the various skin-diseases. So we are constrained to postpone deeper investigation of the question to a subsequent occasion, or wait to see whether meantime some other enquirer, better equipped for the work, may not throw light on the chaos. Only so far as _Scabies_ (Scab) is concerned, it would seem allowable to assume allusions to be intended to vicious living as a cause of the malady. It cannot be without a reason that for centuries this one above all other skin diseases seems to have fallen under special disrepute; and the term to have been used by poets, by _Martial_[187] for example, to indicate that sensual indulgence had been at work. In fact, several of the earliest Writers on Venereal disease hold it to be a sort of _scabies_, and even at a later period there is for long frequent mention made of _Venereal scars or scabs_. Possibly also in Greece lepra (leprosy) was looked upon as a form of skin-disease that was come by in no reputable way, and commonly regarded as an inheritance of the debauchees[188], just as we saw to be the case with _mentagra_ at Rome. Affections of the external skin consequent upon complaints of the genital organs being thus no less common in Ancient times than they are to-day, it follows that in inverse proportion forms of ulceration of the palate and nose, as well as complaints affecting the bones, must have fallen into the background and have been of more rare occurrence, just as is observed to be the case in the present day[189]. So, to combine all the varying forms under one generalisation, we may say that this represents a type of disease of an exceedingly mild and favourable character, particularly if attention is directed only to the external symptoms, as indeed was habitually done by the old pathologists. For even the skin-affection itself presents so little that is characteristic, or at any rate shows itself under such varying shapes, that even at the present day its diagnosis is extremely difficult, being very often based solely and entirely on the admission of the patient, whether voluntary or forced from him, of having suffered from gonorrhœa or chancre. But if the so-called secondary symptoms are more or less completely absent, or lack distinctness, what is there then left beyond the primary affections of the genitals and their succedanea? Full and sufficient descriptions of these are not lacking; we have already quoted numerous examples, and we shall find others yet clearer and more precise later on.