and bounds, from that date. It came from the island of Haiti, in which
it was prevalent at the time the discoverers of America landed there,
and the return of Columbus's infected sailors to Europe was the signal
for a blasting epidemic, which in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries devastated Spain, Italy, France, and England, and spread into
India, Asia, China, and Japan.

[1] For a detailed account in English, see Pusey, W. A.: "Syphilis
as a Modern Problem," Amer. Med. Assoc., 1915.

It is a well-recognized fact that a disease which has never appeared
among a people before, when it does attack them, spreads with
terrifying rapidity and pursues a violent and destructive course on the
new soil which they offer. This was the course of syphilis in Europe in
the years immediately following the return of Columbus in 1493. Invading
armies, always a fruitful means of spreading disease, carried syphilis
with them everywhere and left it to rage unchecked among the natives
when the armies themselves went down to destruction or defeat. Explorers
and voyagers carried it with them into every corner of the earth, so
that it is safe to say that in this year of grace 1917 there probably
does not exist a single race or people upon whom syphilis has not set
its mark. The disease, in four centuries, coming seemingly out of
nowhere, has become inseparably woven into the problems of civilization,
and is part and parcel of the concerns of every human being. The
helpless fear caused by the violence of the disease in its earlier days,
when the suddenness of its attack on an unprepared people paralyzed
comprehension, has given place to knowledge such as we can scarcely
duplicate for any of the other scourges of humanity. The disease has in
its turn become more subtle and deceiving, its course is seldom marked
by the bold and glaring destructiveness, the melting away of resistance,