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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![1 have known the gout produce a swelling in the testicle of the inflammatory kind, and therefore similar to the sympathetic swel- ling from a venereal cause, having many of its characters. Inju- ries done to the testicle produce swellings; but they are different from those above mentioned, being more permanent, having the disease or cause in the part itself. Cancers and the scrofula pro- duce swellings of the testicle; but these are generally slow in their progress, and not at all similar to those arising from an irritation in the urethra. § 11. Of the Swellings of the Glands from Sympathy. Since our knowledge of the manner in which substances get into the circulation, and our having learned that many substances, espe- cially poisons, in their course to the circulation, irritate the absorb- ent glands to inflammation and tumefaction, we might naturally suppose such swellings, accompanying complaints in the urethra attended with a discharge, to be owing to the absorption of that matter, and therefore, if it be a venereal discharge, that they must also be venereal. But wre must not be too hasty in drawing this con- clusion, for we know that the glands will sometimes swell from an irritation at the origin of the lymphatics, where no absorption could possibly have taken place. They often swell and become painful upon the commencement of inflammation, before any suppuration has taken place, and subside upon the coming on of suppuration, because when the suppuration begins, the inflammation abates. I have known a prick in the finger with a clean sewing-needle pro- duce a red streak all up the fore arm, pain along the inside of the biceps muscle, a swelling of the lymphatic gland above the inner condyle of the humerus, and also of the glands of the arm-pit, immediately followed by sickness and a rigor, all which, however, have soon gone off. As it should therefore appear that the absorb- ent system is capable of being affected as well by irritation as by the absorption of matter, in all diseases of this system arising from local injuries attended with matter, one must always have these two causes in view, and endeavour, if possible, to distinguish from which the present affection proceeds. For in those arising from an irritated surface in consequence of poison, especially the vene- real, it is of considerable consequence to be able to say from which of the two it arises, since it sometimes happens, although but seldom, that the glands of the groin are affected in a common gonorrhoea with the appearance of beginning buboes, but which I suspect to be similar to the swelling of the testicle, that is, merely sympa- thetic. The pain they give is but very trifling, when compared to that of the true venereal swellings arising from the absorption of matter, and they seldom suppurate. However, there are swellings testicle which occurs so often in combination with venereal symptoms that it must be allowed to be a constitutional effect of the virus. It will be described here- after among the secondary symptoms of lues venerea.]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21131508_0059.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
