True it is impossible from the passage of Thucydides to decide with any certainty whether the extremities, hands, feet and genitals, fell off of their own accord or were removed by the knife; but our own opinion is that both was the case, for of course there were Physicians at Athens, and until they had learned their powerlessness against the prevailing sickness, they no doubt employed the remedial means at their disposal, and these consisted according to Hippocrates solely and simply in the use of scalpel and cauterizing iron, all other measures having proved unavailing. That these were equally resorted to in ulcerations of the genitals we see from the passage of Galen quoted above, and the Poem of the Priapeia, p. 74, confirms the same in the most convincing way. Enough has been alleged to prove how far the view expressed in many different forms, to the effect that, in the Athenian Plague as well as in the meteorological conditions and their results as laid down by Hippocrates, it is a question of Venereal disease, is justified by facts, and to show that even in Antiquity materials are to be found to demonstrate conclusively that the _genius epidemicus_ exercised a not unimportant influence on the rise, form and course of the ulcerations of the genital organs. In what way this influence acted on the complaints consequent on paederastia and the vices of the _cunnilingue_ and the _fellator_ and affecting the posterior and mouth, we cannot at any rate at the moment demonstrate historically, but it seems only probable that previously existing ulcerations in the mouth and throat must under an erysipelas-typhoïdal general condition have proved themselves in the highest degree dangerous to the sufferers. SECOND SECTION. Influences which served to hinder to a greater or less degree the inception of Diseases consequent upon the Use or Misuse of the Genital Organs. § 34.