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.)
139/592
![accidental changes in the constitution, not at all depending upon the nature of the disease itself. I have suspected that there was something scrofulous in some gleets. We find frequently that a derangement of the natural actions of a part will be the cause of that part falling into some new disease to which there may be a strong tendency in the constitution. We find that a cold falling on the eyes produces a scrofulous weakness in those parts, with a considerable discharge. There are often scrofulous swellings in the tonsils from the same cause. This opinion of the nature of some gleets is strengthened by the methods of cure; for we find that the sea-bath cures more gleets than the common cold bath, or any other mode of bathing. I have never yet tried the internal use of those medicines which are generally given in the scrofula; but I have found sea-water, diluted and used as an injection, cure some gleets, though it is not always effectual. A gleet is generally understood to arise from a weakness; this certainly gives us no idea of the disease, and indeed there is none which can be annexed to the expression. By mechanical weakness, is understood the inability to perform some action or sustain some force. By animal weakness the same is understood. But when the expression is applied to the animal's performing an uncommon or an additional action, I do not perfectly understand it. Upon this idea of weakness depended, in a great measure, the usual method of cure; but we shall find that the treatment founded on this idea is so far from answering in all cases that it often does harm, and that a contrary practice is successful. A gleet differs from a gonorrhoea: first, in this, that though a conse- quence of it, it is perfectly innocent with respect to infection; secondly, when it is a true gleet, it is generally different in some of the consti- tuent parts of the discharge, which consists of globular bodies, floating or wrapt in a slimy mucus, instead of a serum. But the urethra is so circumstanced as easily to fall back into the formation of pus; and this commonly happens upon the least increase of exercise, eating or drinking indigestible food, or anything which increases the circulation or heats the patient. The virus, however, I believe, does not return; but of this I am not certain, for there are cases that make it very doubtful; as was before observed. I am inclined to suspect that a gleet arises from the surface of the urethra only, and not from the glands; for I have observed, in several instances, that when the passage has just been cleared, either by the discharge of urine or by the use of an injection, a lascivious idea has caused the natural slime to flow very pure, which I do suppose would not have happened if the parts secreting the liquor had assisted in forming the gleet.1 1 Added: A gentleman has a gleet, occasionally attended with pain in making water ; it is brought on by sitting in a postchaise, if he sits on the cushion, but not if he sits on a hard seat; in never comes on after riding on horseback, but he believes that riding upon a padded saddle would produce it.—Home. [Pathological anatomy has taught me, contrary to the idea which Hunter advances, that the same elements of the mucous membranes are affected in the chronic stage or gleet, and in the acute stage or gonorrhoea.—Ricobd.]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21131521_0139.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
