[172] _Joannes Leo_, “Descriptio Africae”, (Description of Africa), Leyden 1632. 12mo., p. 86., Paucis admodum toto Atlante, tota Numidia totaque Libya hoc notum est contagium. Quodsi quisquam fuerit qui se eo infectum sentiat, mox in Numidiam aut in Nigritarum regionem proficiscitur, cuius tanta est aeris temperies, ut optimae sanitati restitutus inde in patriam redeat: quod quidem multis accidisse ipse meis vidi oculis, qui nullo adhibito neque pharmaco neque medico, praeter saluberrimum iam dictum aërem, revaluerant. (To very few persons indeed in the whole of the Atlas, the whole of Numidia and of Libya, is this contagion known. But if there should be any man who feels himself attacked by it, he presently journeys into Numidia or the district of the Nigritae, where the nature of the air is such that he returns home again restored to excellent good health. This I have seen happen to many with my own eyes, who without help of druggist or doctor recovered by the exceeding salubrity of the air as aforesaid). Comp. _Scaliger_, Exercitat. CLXXX. ch. 18.—_Petronius_, loco citato p. 1213.
[173] _Schnurrer_, “Geographische Nosologie,” (Geographical Nosology,—Distribution of Diseases), p. 454.
[174] _Brown, W. G._ “Reisen in Afrika, Egypten und Syrien.” (Travels in Africa, Egypt and Syria), transl. from the English by C. Sprengel. Weimar 1800. 8vo., p. 389., tells us of a marine at Kahira, who had become infected, how the man, having in the mean time taken no means whatever to combat the disease and without giving up either the use of brandy or the practice of copulation, two months later got a violent itching eruption over his whole body, and particularly on the head and over the glands of the neck. This he treated by sprinkling over it a sort of red earth, whereupon it dried up and disappeared, so that four weeks later he found himself completely cured and his skin as clean and smooth as before. _Schnurrer_, loco citato p. 453., also gives the story, but with sundry inaccuracies. Similar observations were made by _Th. Clarke_ at the Cape of Good Hope, London Med. Gazette 1833. _Behrend_, Syphilidologie Vol. I. pp. 241 sqq. The Minorite _Conti_ declared in opposition to _Norberg_ (Biörnstähl’s Briefe, 6 vol. p. 410.): “Christian no less than Mussulman in the East is strictly forbidden to cohabit with a woman before the eighth day after her purification. If it _is_ done within that period, the man’s body is poisoned: he experiences swelling, ulcers, sores, itch and pains in the limbs, and shows all the symptoms of leprosy. At this time the female does not become pregnant, because the blood is unclean, but if conception does occur, the child also gets a bad itch, and generally is affected like his parents.” _Fr. Eagle_ (Lancet July 1836., Note 671.). _Behrend’s_ Syphilidologie, Vol. I. p. 118., relates a number of cases that occurred in London where after intercourse with women during menstruation both gonorrhœa and chancre supervened.