A treatise on the venereal disease / by John Hunter ; with copious additions, by Philip Ricord ; translated and edited, with notes, by Freeman J. Bumstead.
- John Hunter
- Date:
- 1859
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A treatise on the venereal disease / by John Hunter ; with copious additions, by Philip Ricord ; translated and edited, with notes, by Freeman J. Bumstead. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
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![other cases, it is sufficient to inject, two or three times a day, a solu- tion of crystallized nitrate of silver, containing fifteen to thirty grains to three ounces of distilled water. In all cases, where injections are indicated, the action of the fluid is much more efficacious when it is kept in contact with the diseased tis- sues by means of pledgets soaked in it. Again, isolating the walls of the vagina by the introduction of charpie or carded cotton is often successful. When the disease has involved the uterus, the above means may still act through continuity or contiguity of tissue; but, it must be confessed, they are more frequently powerless. Much may be hoped, in this case, from cauterizing the neck and its cavity by the introduc- tion, with all necessary care, of a stick of nitrate of silver. Injections, also, with a solution of this salt, may be made of the strength that I have mentioned. Nitrate of silver, suitably employed in these cases, causes no more unpleasant symptoms than any other method; and those who have blamed it, have badly read and observed, or imperfectly understood. Uterine injections, which M. Vidal invented about the same time as myself, produce, in some cases, very alarming nervous hysteric pheno- mena, which I pointed out in a memoir, in 1832. They must there- fore be employed with excessive caution; and perhaps it would always be preferable to insert the medicated liquids, by means of a small sponge, attached to a piece of whalebone. What I said of the treatment of urethral gonorrhoea in the male, is true of the same disease in the female; and copaiba and cubebs are here again efficacious. I will only add a few words to what Hunter says of the constitu- tional treatment of gonorrhoea, so far as regards mercury. It is almost always injurious, employed as a constitutional remedy, and a fortiori, injurious as a local application. The half treatment of M. Lagneau is not rational,1 and recourse should be had to this class of remedies only when other indications present themselves, and demand constitu- tional remedies, as the coexistence of an indurated chancre, or a per- sistent engorgement, to which mercury may be locally applied as a resolvent.—Kicord.] [Editor.—In the treatment of gonorrhoea, it is often exceedingly difficult to make the stomach tolerate its chief remedial agent, copaiba. Capsules are far from being sufficient in the majority of cases. They frequently nauseate the patient, when taken in sufficient numbers, and their contents are often impure. That form of copaiba which is applicable to the largest number of cases, I believe to be copaiba solidified by magnesia, especially when combined with cubebs. Copaiba and cubebs together, are more effica- 1 M. Lagneau regards gonorrhoea as a superficial effect of the venereal virus, (see page 56), and after the discharge has stopped, administers four grains of mer- cury daily for at least a fortnight. {Diet, de M6d., Art. Blennoerhagie.) Of course, this demi-treatment will be used only by those who believe in the existence of a demi- syphilitic disease.—Ed.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21131521_0125.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
