Supplement to Practical observations on the natural history and cure of lues venerea : containing remarks on the application of the lunar caustic to strictures of the urethra, on the use of sedatives in gonorrhaea, and their dangerous consequences in lues venerea : with a brief enumeration of those effects of mercury which are decisive in the cure of this disease / by John Howard.

  • Howard, John, -1808.
Date:
1801
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Supplement to Practical observations on the natural history and cure of lues venerea : containing remarks on the application of the lunar caustic to strictures of the urethra, on the use of sedatives in gonorrhaea, and their dangerous consequences in lues venerea : with a brief enumeration of those effects of mercury which are decisive in the cure of this disease / by John Howard. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    12/56 (page 8)
    / bougie, may gradually open, and will enlarge a contracted part of the canal, is admitted ; but it is not so easy a matter ‘to destroy with them either callous edges or fungous excrescences, or to produce a new and healthy surface in place of one that, having been long in a state of ulceration, is very ir- ritable, All this may be done by a few touches of the lunar caustic. It has been asked^ by what magic does it act in ulceration ? This is the magic by which it ^acts, and these are some of its medical properties. how very distant is the probability of removing such filaments running across the urethra as Mr. Sharpe has described, by the application of bougies ? and on the contrary, how much more probable is it, that they may be destroyed by the lunar caustic? These filaments may have been originally coagulable ]ymp^l, thrown out by inflammation, and organized by time; and this may perhaps be a frequent cause of obstruction. In Mr. Hunter’s 4th plate, in which a stone is delineated behind a stricture, it is most likely that the stricture might have been destroyed with this caustic, and the stone set at liberty. And this transverse filament (if I may so call it) was also very probably produced by inflammation, as other adhesions are, between the lungs and pleura, &c, &c. The name of caustic to a feeling person carries with it a tremendous idea, and some who reprobate its application are equally ignorant both of the na- ture of the lunar caustic, and of its operation By some, from a strange want of precision, its effects have been confounded with those of the most violent caustics.