Note 582 — PRIMO VIAGGIO INTORNO AL MONDO

MS. 5,650 reads: “St. Job,” and “for franchi.” Eden (p. 260) says of this disease: “In al the Ilandes of this Archipelagus, rayneth the diſeaſe of ſaynt Iob (whiche wee caule the frenche poxe) more then in any other place in the worlde.” Evidently this passage of Pigafetta is a reference to the disease of syphilis. This disease was not first introduced in the Orient by the Portuguese as Crawfurd claims, nor first discovered in America, for Varthema found it in Calicut in 1505, and it was observed in China long before it was noticed in Europe. Littré discovered a mention of it in a work of the thirteenth century, and it is mentioned in Sanskrit medical books prior to 1500 under the name of upadamça. It is doubtless an old disease. Stanley (p. 153) following Amoretti, wrongly believes the leprosy to be meant by this passage. From the fact that the Filipinos had a name for the disease (see vol. i, p. 189), it is conjectured that its existence was well known. See Linschoten’s Voyage (Hakluyt Society edition), i, p. 239.