A complete handbook of treatment : arranged as an alphabetical index of diseases to facilitate reference, and containing nearly one thousand formulae / by William Aitken.

William Aitken

Date:: 1882

Credit: A complete handbook of treatment : arranged as an alphabetical index of diseases to facilitate reference, and containing nearly one thousand formulae / by William Aitken. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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$be accepted as cured at the time they are simply discharged from present treatment, because they may seem to be pro- gressing to a favorable termination, but not absolutely cured, as is the case with the records of Fricke's experiments. The great benefit obtained by the experiments, observa- tions and discussions regarding mercury in syphilis, carried on during the first quarter of the present century, as Dr. Berkeley Hill justly observes, has been to show—(i.) That all venereal ulcers can be healed without mercury ; (2.) That this drug is not the cause of the relapses so frequent in syph- ilis ; and, (3.) That very much less mercury is required to control syphilis than had been previously supposed neces- sary. Some interesting cases of syphilis cured without the use of mercury are related by Surgeon-Major Dr. Peter Boi- leau, in the Brit. Med. Jouni., for July, 1879.] The present position of opinion with regard to mercury in the cure of venereal sores seems to be this, namely,—That it is a very valuable and essential remedy in cases of syphilis, but not in cases of soft chancre ; and the difficulty is to ex- press always the nature of the cases for which it is most suitable. Even those who believe most fully in its virtues acknowledge that in primary affections, as when given in the treatment of the local sore, its administration will not always prevent the occurrence of constitutional symptoms; never- theless the value of mercury in the cure of the induration of the true infecting chancre is now fully recognized. The local lesion, if it appears after the usual prolonged period of incubation, is as much a manifestation that the constitution is already affected as is the developed vesicle of variola vaccina a manifestation that the constitution is affected witii variolous poison. Looking, also, to the nature of the virus of syphilis, the excision of the primary lump or sore—the specific induration—as practiced by Dr. Veale, assistant to the Professor of Medicine in the Army Medical School at Netley {Edinburgh Monthly Journal^ July; 1864), and by Dr. Humphrey, of Cambridge, {British Medical Journal, August 13, 1864), is a justifiable operation; for the original sore, when it has become a ''lump -(as in its state of woody-like induration), is an undoubted maintainer of infection and of contamination of the system. If, therefore, it can be easily and completely insulated, as when on the prepuce, the cure of the constitutional symptoms may be facilitated and shortened. There are also certain forms of secondary syphilis for which the administration of mercury$