A treatise on the venereal disease / by John Hunter ; with notes by George G. Babington.
- John Hunter
- Date:
- 1841
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A treatise on the venereal disease / by John Hunter ; with notes by George G. Babington. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
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![of it than the other. In this country these complaints have most commonly a scrofulous tendency, and are often truly scrofulous, the disease partaking more of that disposition than any other. Parts have also their peculiar tendency to diseases, which arc stronger than those of the constitution at large, and when injured they will of course fall into the morbid action arising from such tendencies. Therefore, when parts have had their natural actions destroyed by a venereal irritation, those tendencies will be brought into action ; and, therefore, the diseases arising from the tendencies of such parts are to be kept in view. They will be assisted like- wise by local situation and age. In particular countries, and in young people, ihe tendency to scro- fula will be predominant; therefore buboes in them will more readily become scrofulous. In old people they may form cancers ; and when in parts of the body which have a particular tendency to cancer, that disease will more readily take place. The want of knowledge and of attention to this subject has been the cause of many mistakes, for whenever such effects have been produced in consequence of the venereal disease, it has immediately been blamed, and not only as a cause, but it has been supposed to be the disease itself. This is an inference natural enough to those who cannot see that a variety of causes are capable of producing one effect, or, in other words, that where the predisposing cause is the same, a variety of immediate causes may produce the same action. It shows great ignorance, however, to suppose the venereal disease can be both the predisposing and immediate cause. When the venereal disease attacks the urethra, it often becomes itself the predisposing cause of abscesses and many other complaints; when it attacks the outside of the penis, forming chancres, they often ulcerate so deep as to communicate with the urethra, produ- cing fistula in the urethra, and often a continued phimosis. In describing diseases which, like the venereal disease, admit of a great variety of symptoms, we should keep a middle line, first giving the most common symptoms of the disease in each form, then the varieties which most commonly occur, and last of all the most uncommon ; but it will not be easy to take notice of every possible variety. Therefore, when a variety occurs not mentioned, it is not to be supposed that the author is leading his readers astray, or is unacquainted with the disease at large. If his genera] principles are just, they will help to explain most of the singularities of the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21131508_0036.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
