Excerpt from Encyclopaedia Medica, Vol. 7 Berengario da Carpi. The first outbreak was very severe, as is usual when a disease attacks an unprotected population, but the symptoms became milder when it had lasted a few years, though there were occasional out breaks of a more severe type. Distribution. - No country and no people are exempt from syphilis. It is most common where opportunities for promiscuous intercourse are most abundant or are most readily tolerated, as in large towns and where the pioneers of a more highly civilised race are brought into contact with people in a lower state of culture. It is rarely seen in the country districts of Europe, where each knows his neighbour, for, with ordinary precautions, infection is always due to direct contact, so that any syphilitic individual has only a limited power of spreading the disease. The more benign forms of syphilis are seen in those leading healthy lives, whilst its worst ravages occur in those whose health is undermined by alcoholic excess, sexual debauchery, or unhealthy surroundings. And yet, though this is the rule, there is no question that certain people are much more severely affected by syphilis than others, for in this as in every other disease the susceptibility of the individual patient must be taken into account. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.