knowledge so called is by no means all fact; it is by no means all certain and authoritative. The blunders and errors that pass current as science at one time or another are, perhaps, more stupendous than any others. But science, as a whole, is an ordered growth. The development of a certain point of view and of certain methods of research has produced a result of vast significance.

Of this development, modern philosophy seems to be entirely ignorant, and modern so-called methodology gives a very incoherent account. The old logic, in the days of its great founder, attempted, and to a large extent succeeded in formulating a means of checking the fallacies of popular reasoning. It gave a clear account of valid reasoning; it exhibited the flaws of invalid reasoning. It made the student better able to distinguish between truth and falsehood, proof and fallacy. It was of service to the man who desired to reason correctly. A methodology which is to be valid and useful should do for science what logic did for reasoning. The methods adopted in science-experiment, observation, hypothesis and so on—are even more liable to error than the process of formal reasoning. The man of science, in using his methods, does so, in the main, instinctively and without philosophic guidance. Is it possible for the philosopher to formulate his principles in such a manner as to be of value to the man of science, to be of service in enabling him to discover scientific truth and avoid error? The relation I am attempting to express is well illustrated by a somewhat trite analogy. It should resemble the relation between theoretical mechanics and practical engineering. The exponent of theoretical mechanics does not attempt to tell the working engineer how to build a bridge. But, if the working engineer were in no way more competent by reason of his study of theoretical mechanics, the latter science would indeed be a mass of theoretical futility. The same remarks apply to methodology. If the logician can throw no light on the problems of practical science, if, as is the case, the man of science is rendered in no way more competent to solve the problems of scientific research by a knowledge of methodology, if it is not worth his while to study it, methodology is either in a very rudimentary state or is a hollow sham.

There are two possible lines of development for the logic of science. One is an advance and improvement so that it may have some bearing on matters scientific and may aid the understanding of the wider aspects of science. The other is its deletion from the field of philosophic thought. If it is merely another aspect of the logical and philosophical desire to elucidate the nature of human knowledge, it is merely metaphysics; and no special section relating to science is required. On this assumption there can be no logic of science.

The trend of the present essay will leave no doubt which of the alternatives commends itself to the reviewer. But the view here implied is one that has received small support in the philosophic world. If, however, philosophers, actively or passively, oppose this view, if they are doubtful about its theoretical validity and opposed to attempts to carry it out in practice, there is no defence from Dr Schiller's attack. With this open alternative we must leave the matter. Actually and practically there is no methodology, no logic of science, worthy of the name. Is it possible to formulate such a study, or should philosophers abandon the attempt as mistaken in theory and impossible in practice?

H. S. SHELTON.

Art. 7.-SYPHILIS.

1. Conférence Internationale pour la prophylaxie de la syphilis et des maladies vénériennes, 1899. And IIème Conférence Internationale, etc., 1902. Rapports publiés par le Docteur Dubois-Havenith. Five vols. Brussels: Lamertin, 1899-1900 and 1902-1903.

2. Transactions XVIIth International Congress of Medicine. London: Frowde, 1913. Section xiii: 'Dermatology and Syphilography.' London: Frowde & Hodder & Stoughton, 1914.

3. Le mal français à l'Epoque de l'Expédition de Charles VIII en Italie, d'après les documents originaux. By Hesnaut. Paris: Marpon et Flammarion, 1886. 4. Der Ursprung der Syphilis: eine medicinische und kulturgeschichtliche Untersuchung von Dr. med. Iwan Bloch. Two vols. Jena: Fischer, 1901-11.

5. Report on Venereal Diseases. By Dr R. W. Johnstone, with Introduction by the Medical Officer of the Local Government Board. London: Wyman, 1913.

And other works.

THE grave danger to the national health arising from the prevalence of the disease known as syphilis has of late forced itself insistently on the attention of the public. Much discussion upon the subject has taken place in the press; and a Royal Commission has recently been appointed to enquire into it. The stage has produced-privately, it is true-'Les Avariés' of Brieux in English dress under the title of 'Damaged Goods,' a play which has been well known on the Continent for some years. Ibsen dealt with the same matter in 'Ghosts,' which was published in England a long time ago, though it was not given on a public stage. Great Scourge and how to end it' has been issued from the woman's suffrage point of view. Moreover, at the International Congress of Medicine last year, the subject of syphilis was prominently discussed and fully reported. In the face of all this, it is important to view the subject in its proper perspective and try to handle it in as calm a way as possible. A matter of such general importance to the community cannot be left entirely to the medical journals, nor to the sociologists and the eugenists alone; it is for the nation at large to inform itself and to judge

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what, if any, measures can be taken to control so great a plague. If any success in this direction is to be achieved, it can only be by a reasoned and a national effort; and the first and indispensable condition of this is full and accurate information. This we may hope eventually to obtain from the report of the Royal Commission, but meanwhile it is desirable that the public mind should be prepared and should fully realise the importance of the matter. It is on this account that, from a sense of public duty, we venture to handle the subject, repulsive as it is, in the pages of this Review.

There is no doubt that, although syphilis had been apparently observed in Spain and France for a year or two before the entry of Charles VIII into Naples in February, 1495, the sudden and terrifying explosion of the disease on every hand was the result of this expedition. In May, 1495, after sacking the city, Charles VIII and his army of mercenaries made their way back from Naples to France. The disbanded troops scattered in various directions and spread the disease wherever they went, along the road and in their native towns and villages. When one realises the promiscuity of the sexes, the overcrowding and wretchedness of the dwellings, the convivialities and merry-makings of those days of the quatro- and cinquecentos, it is not surprising that such a disease as syphilis should have become epidemic-nay, apparently pandemic. In this connexion it must not be forgotten that infection results not only from cohabitation, but also accidentally, as for example by kissing or in passing the loving cup. The disease may find its way into the system through various parts of the body.* At the present time, in some of the more primitive areas of Europe, in Russia for instance, house-epidemics of syphilis are not uncommon. On this point a Russian expert states that 'By spreading mainly-in over 70 per cent. of the cases-by extragenital infection, syphilis in the rural districts often remains untreated for ten or more years, by reason of purely local conditions.' These accidental infections have been named by some medical writers, syphilis of the innocent

* Pernet, A Lecture on Extra-genital Chancres' ('Clinical Journal,' No. 908. Mar. 23, 1910).

or syphilis insontium-unfortunately, for such a label would imply that the disease in other instances was a syphilis of the guilty, a distinction which is quite outside the purview of medicine.

But to return to the disbanded mercenaries. An examination of city records and the printed works of the early part of the 16th century shows the coincidence of the appearance of the disease with the return of the soldiers from the Italian war. In an old chronicle, 'Sejours de Charles VIII et Loys XII à Lyon sur le Rosne,' the following occurs :

En ce mesme temps vindrent en France plusieurs des gens du roy, lesquels avoient une manière de maladie que aucuns appelloient la grant gorre, les autres la grosse vérolle, et aucuns la maladie de Naples, à cause que les Français venant de Naples en estoient malades, dont on fut bien esbahy en France, et disoit on que les Lombards avoient este inventeurs de ceste maladie pour se venger des François.' *

It should be noted here that there were many prostitutes in Lyons,† and Lyonnaise' was a term frequently used to designate a courtesan. A number of these women followed the army to Italy on the passage of Charles VIII through that city; and no doubt survivors returned to their native haunts, not only in Lyons but in other places, thus disseminating the disease broadcast. In Germany the Emperor Maximilian, whose troops had fought side by side with the Milanese and Venetian army, issued an edict dated from Worms, August 7, 1495, in which the new disease is referred to as 'novus ille et gravissimus hominum morbus nostris diebus exortus, quem vulgo malum Francicum vocant, post hominum memoriam inauditus.' As to Switzerland, all the chronicles point to the disease as having been introduced by the mercenaries from the Italian war of Charles VIII. In England, Andrew Boorde, in his 'Breviarie of Helthe (1567), says that in English Morbus Gallicus is named the French pocks; when that I was young they were named the Spanish pocks.' Boorde was born about 1480. It would appear, therefore, that syphilis may have been

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* Potton, De la Prostitution, etc., dans la ville de Lyon, 1842,' cited in Bloch's 'Ursprung der Syphilis,' i, 262 n.

† See Erasmus in his dialogue on Inns (Early 16th Century Account).