Pathological facts : respectfully submitted to the Committee of the House of Commons, appointed to enquire as to the means for the prevention of contagious diseases in certain naval and military stations / by David Macloughlin.
- Date:
- [1864]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Pathological facts : respectfully submitted to the Committee of the House of Commons, appointed to enquire as to the means for the prevention of contagious diseases in certain naval and military stations / by David Macloughlin. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
81/160 page 55
![CHAPTEE V. EVIDENCE AGAINST MERCURY IN SYPHILIS, 18] 2-40. After all these contradictions and exaggerated statements of the mercurial scliool, it is refreshing to commence an account of the period which was ushered in in 1813, by Dr. William Fergusson. One of the most fortunate results of the British campaign in the Peninsula was the discovery made by the scientific part of the army, that syphilis was treated success- fully in Portugal by simple hygiene and low diet. Indeed, it seems to me to be the most important discovery in the practice of modern times after that of vaccination. For before that time thousands died after long and protracted suffering, caused by the very mercury which was given as a remedy. Dr. Fergusson, who was residing in Portugal, wrote a letter home, dated Evora, April 30, 1812, which letter was read before a meeting of the Medico-Chirurgical Society of London, June 9, 1812. He thus commences: Syphilis has excited much interest and altercation in this country on the part of all British medical observers, no less for its dreadful ravages among their own countrymen, than for its comparatively milder phenomena among the inhabitants of this country. In the British army it is probable that more men have sustained the most melancholy of all mutilations during the four years that it has been in Portugal, through this disease, than the registers of all the hospitals in England could produce for](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2195947x_0083.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
