Clap and the Pox in English Literature.

DR. J. D. ROLLESTON regarded it as a great honour to speak after Sir D'Arcy Power, and he re-echoed all that the President had said about the paper. With regard to the nomenclature, it was interesting to note that, according to the Oxford Dictionary, which Sir D'Arcy quoted, the word " pox " seemed to be derived from the English " poc," whereas the word " clap " appeared to be derived from the French word "clapoir," meaning a bubo, or " clapier," meaning a brothel. Sir D'Arcy raised the question why no disgrace attached to clap in ancient days. He, Dr. Rolleston, suggested it was due to the fact that clap had been in existence for all time. In Leviticus the " issues " alluded to were probably, in many cases, clap. That was in marked contrast with the history of pox, which was introduced into Europe at the end of the fifteenth century. He knew that Sir D'Arcy held the view that he did, that pox did not exist, in Europe at all events, before the end of the fifteenth century. It was still a disputed point. Professor Sudhoff held that it existed long before, and many writers, especially Rosenbaum, believed that all the allusions to lesions on the genitalia in ancient Greece and ancient Rome were syphilitic in origin. One great objection to syphilis having existed in classical antiquity was that held at a meeting in I909 at the Royal Societyof Medicine on Syphilis, in which Sir Norman Moore said that had syphilis existed amongst those highly civilised persons there would have been a description of general paralysis of the insane, whereas nothing of the kind was to be found. As to the existence of syphilis in the Middle Ages, a very good argument against this was found in lay literature. He discussed that point in a paper he read at Bucharest some years ago, by pointing out that there