A treatise on the venereal disease / by John Hunter.

  • John Hunter
Date:
1810
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the venereal disease / by John Hunter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    51 probably never have gone farther than the person in whom it first arose; and therefore never have been known; but being sealed in the parts of generation, where the only natural connection takes place be- tween one human being and another, except the mothci and child, it was in the most favourable situation for being propagated ; and as we shall find hereafter in the history of the disease itself, that no consti- tutional effect of this poison can be communicated to others, we arc led of necessity to conclude that its first effects were local. III. OF THE NATURE OF THE POISON. • * L, ; '. .. ’ ! We know nothing of the poison itself, hut only its effects on the human body. It is commonly in the form ol pus, or united with pus, or som$ such secretion, and produces a similar matter in others, which shows that it is most generally, although not necessarily, a consequence of in- flammation. It produces or excites therefore in most cases an in- flammation in the parts contaminated ; besides which inflammation the parts so contaminated have a peculiar mode of action superadded, diffe- rent from all other actions attending inflammation ; and it is this speci- fic mode of action which produces the specific quality in the matter. It is not necessary that inflammation should be present to keep up this peculiar mode of action, because the poison continues to be formed long after all signs of inflammation have ceased. This appears from the following facts : men having only what is called a gleet, or a healing chancre, give the disease to sound women : and many venereal gonor- rhoeas happen without any visible signs of inflammation. In women the inflammation is frequently very slight, and often there is not the least sign of it; for they have been known to infect men though they themselves have had no symptoms of inflammation, or of the disease in any form. Therefore the inflammation and sup- puration, when present, are only attendants on the peculiar mode of action; the degree in which they take place depending more on the nature of the constitution than on that of the poison.
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