An essay on syphilis : submitted ... to the examination of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh ... / by George Ballingall.

  • George Ballingall
Date:
1820
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on syphilis : submitted ... to the examination of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh ... / by George Ballingall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    “ nerea.” * No stronger language could have been found to mark the sentiments of this eminent sur¬ geon in favour of the superior efficacy of mercury; and when we reflect that his sentiments were thus expressed in 1807, it is not easy to believe that, within the short period which has since elapsed, such a revolution can have taken place either in the constitutions of patients, in the nature of the dis¬ ease, or in the powers of the remedy, as to render them altogether inapplicable at the present day. When we consider farther, that, at the time Mr. Pearson wrote, he expressed the opinion of al¬ most every well-informed member of the profession, it is matter of surprise that, within the short period of seven or eight years, f a considerable proportion of that profession should have been led to renounce their former opinions, and to adopt a line of prac¬ tice widely different from what was formerly thought necessary. While I feel myself yet unprepared to relinquish the general use of mercury in the treatment of Sy¬ philis, and while, (to use the language of Doctor Curry) “ I should deeply lament the hasty rejec- * Pearson, Oper. Citat. 2d edition, page 25. t This refers to the date of Dr. Fergusson’s paper in the Me¬ dico Chirurgical Transactions, vol. iv. page 1.
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