(From luo, to dissolve, because it produces dissolution; or from the Hebrew term, laugh, to absorb,) the pestilence in men, and the murrain in beasts.

Lues deifica. One of the ridiculous names for the epilepsy.

Lues neurodes convulsiva, a mild typhus.

Lues venerea. The venereal disease. Aphro-disiacus and Gallicus morbus, grand gor, Patursa morbus Indicus and Neapolilanus. Dr. Cullen names it syphilis, and places it in the class cachexiae, and order impetigines, defining it a contagious disease, arising after impure coition, and a disease of the genitals; ulcers of the throat; corymbose papulae of the skin, particularly at the margin of the hairy scalp, running in scabs and scabby ulcers; pain in the bones, and exostoses: one species only exists.

The source of this disease has occasioned much con-troversy, which, though not interesting in the result, is not without curiosity, and a slight attention to it is, on this occasion, necessary. It has been generally supposed that the venereal disease is a native of America, and was brought to Europe by Colon (Columbus); an opinion supported by the apparently minute accuracy of Dr. Astruc, whose evidence has not been carefully appreciated, neither has the whole been properly adduced. Columbus returned from his first voyage in 1494, and from his second in 1496; but there is not the slightest pretence that the disease was brought to Europe on his first return. His seamen are said to have been in good health; and in his life, collected from his own Mss., by his son Ferdinand, not a word occurs of any disease of this kind. Columbus too returned in March, 1494: at this time the disease began to rage in Naples. He landed in Portugal; but in this country the disease did not appear till two or three years afterwards. The medical authors who wrote in 1496 mention it as a new disease"then raging," and some of these date it two years before. Hock de Brakenaw, a professor of medicine at Bologna, fixes its era in

1494; and he wrote only eight years afterwards. Ca-taneus, who wrote in 1505 at Genoa; and De Vigo, physician to the pope, whose work was published in 1512, both professional men, living almost on the spot, and so very near to its first appearance, fixed its earliest era in 1494. Pintor, a Spanish physician, who resided at Rome as physician to Pope Alexander VI. from 1492 to 1502, and who wrote in 1499, fixes its era also at 1494. Fulgosius, and some other authors, assign an earlier period to its appearance; but there is much doubt whether it was known before the end of 1493. Coccius, in a work published at Venice in 1502, dates its era in 1495; and Jean de Bourdigne, the French historian, remarks, that it began to rage in France in 1495. The evidence of Columbus importing it, on his return from his second voyage, is more striking, but equally inconclusive. He returned in 1496, and Oviedo describes Moses Peter Margarita as affected

"with the distemper." He observes, that he had so many pains that he believes he had also the pains of that disease. The two hundred and twenty-five soldiers who returned with him were undoubtedly in a wretched state of health; but previous to their embarkation they had been besieged in their camp by the Indians, and reduced to live on the most unwholesome food. In this state they crossed the Atlantic. They are described not as having bubos, or cutaneous eruptions, but as of the colour of saffron.

It is singular, that if the venereal disease was of American origin it should not be traced by cotemporary authors to America. The new world was never accused of sending us this scourge till after the third voyage of Columbus, and then, indeed, it was received from thence, though undoubtedly first carried there; nor has any author shown that it was endemic in America. They indeed describe a cutaneous disease, which still exists, and is styled at present the yaws, of which the pain is apparently a modification.

The origin of lues, though seemingly connected with the discovery of America, is more strictly so with the expulsion of the Moors, who, driven from Spain, retired to Italy, and resided on the outside of the Appian gate at Rome, when some of them clandestinely entered the city. The cutaneous diseases of that race engrafted on constitutions enfeebled by the plague, or united with the prevailing epidemic, apparently produced a new and distinct disorder. We shall sum up the whole in the words of a critic in a periodical journal, who has seemingly examined the subject with considerable attention in the original authors.

" The summary of the whole may be very short. In Italy, from the year 1491 to 1495, from the great inundations and severe droughts succeeding each other, pestilential fevers of the most fatal kind prevailed. The disease was styled the plague; but it appears to have been only a fever attended with the most violently putrid symptoms, among which were glandular abscesses, sores, and blotches, which discharged a malignant sanies. Those who recovered did not soon return to perfect health: the abscesses remained in a chronic form, and the whole mass of blood was infected. In this state the disease seems to have been communicated by infection, at first from the most general contact; and it was continued in this highly infectious state many years.

when it was attended with fever, often of the putrid kind. In better situations it sooner assumed a chronic appearance, and by degrees fixed itself in those parts, so as to be communicated only by personal connection. It is particularly observable, on a minute examination of the authors, that venereal symptoms mixed themselves with those of fever: or, in other words, the peculiar symptoms of that epidemic were such as have since discriminated syphilis. These symptoms continued subsequent to that fever, and were at last communicated by infection to those who never had the fever." See Astruc, Swediaur, and J. Foot, on the Venereal Disease; Becket, Philosophical Transactions, vol. 30 and 31; Sanchez' Historical Investigation into the first appearance of the Venereal Disease in Europe; Hensler's two Treatises on the American Origin of the Venereal Disease; Girtanner's Treatise, in 3 vols. 8vo. at Gottin-gen; Gruner's supplementary volume to the Aphro-disiacus of Luisinus, published at Jena; Perenottis' General and Descriptive History of the Origin, etc. of the Venereal Infection, 8vo. Turin; Critical Review, vol. 65; Second Series, vol. 5 and 10.