Capitals," was invented as a remedy for the Plague. His great literary fame depended principally on a Latin poem he wrote with the now repellent title of "Syphillides, sive Morbi Gallici," in three books. This was published in 1530. The author did not accept the view that this disease had been imported from America. He held that it had been known in ancient times, and that it was caused by a peculiar corruption of the air. His hero, Syphilis, had given offence to Apollo, who, in revenge, had poisoned the air he breathed. Syphilis is cured by plunging three times in a subterraneous stream of quicksilver. The best classical scholars of the age regarded the poem as the finest Latin work written since the days when that language was in its full life, and they compared it appreciatively with the poems of Virgil. The following lines will serve as a specimen:—
. . . nam saepius ipsi
Carne sua exutos artus, squallentia ossa
Vidimes, et foedo rosa era dehiscere hiatu
Ora, atque exiles renentia guttura voces.
The name of the disease was acquired from this poem, and though it has a Greek form and appearance, no ancient derivative for it can be suggested. Frascator also wrote a poem on hydrophobia.
Basil Valentine.
The name and works of Basil Valentine are inseparably associated with the medical use of antimony. His "Currus Triumphalis Antimonii" (the Triumphal Chariot of Antimony) is stated in all text-books to have been the earliest description of the virtues of this important remedy, and of the forms in which it might
