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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    fore does not account for the cessation of secretion of matter in that part. It is difficult to say, what is the nature of those sympathetic diseases. They are not venereal, for they subside by the common treatment of in- flammation without the use of mercury; and I have known an instance of a swelled testicle from a venereal gonorrhoea, that suppurated, and was treated, by my advice, as a common suppuration, and healed with- out a grain of mercury being given. Neither can they be called truly inflammatory, having rarely any of the true characters of' inflammation, such as thickening of the parts, symptomatic fever, or sizy blood, ex- cept in swellings of the testicle and glands. The swelling of the testi- cle has several peculiarities attending it; it is often very quick in its increase, and not being of the true inflammatory disposition, it requires less time for the removal of the inflammation; but even where it ap- pears to have more of the true inflammatory action, we find that the removal of the inflammation and tumefaction take place more rapidly than when proceeding from other causes. A swelled testicle, in conse- quence of the radical cure in the hydrocele, does not subside after in- flammation is gone, in as many weeks, as the swelled testicle in conse- quence of its sympathy with other parts, does in days; and probably the reason of this is,that it arises from sympathy; for an inflammation arising from real disease in a part, or from an external injury, as in the hydrocele, must always last either till the disease be removed, or the injury repaired; but that from sympathy will vary as the cause varies, which may happen very quickly; for we find a testicle swell in a few minutes, and in as little time subside; and also the swelling move suddenly from one testicle to the other. These sympathies are often peculiar to particular constitutions, and even to temporary constitutions, in so much as to be in some degree epidemic ; for there is often such an influence in the atmosphere as predisposes the body to this kind of irri- tation; and bodies so predisposed require only the immediate cause to produce the effect.
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