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
Catalogue details

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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    A married woman was seized with the usual symptoms of gonorrhoea, which greatly surprised her, as her husband was free from complaint. On questioning, however, the husband, he confessed that he had had connection with a common girl about a week before his wife com- plained ; but he positively asserted that he had had no discharge or uneasiness whatever, and certainly then showed no signs of disease. In about four days afterwards, that is to say, nearly a fortnight after the impure connection, and a week after he must have communicated the disease to his wife, a gonorrhoeal discharge appeared on him. A gentleman, when absent from home, exposed himself to the hazard of infection. At the end of three days he returned home, and in about four days afterwards his wife had a gonorrhoea. On the tenth day after the connection, the gentleman first perceived a discharge, and the other symptoms of gonorrhoea. But it may be said that, though such cases show that the conclusion at which the author has arrived is practically unsafe, they by no means disprove the truth of the general principle on which it was founded. It may be said that in these cases it is an error to suppose that there is no purulent secretion; that in the very early stage of a gonorrhoea it is probable that the pus is too small in quantity to flow from the urethra; that it lodges in the lacunas, and is washed out by the urine, and is thus concealed from observation; but that it not less really exists; and that the position, therefore, remains untouched—that where there is no matter there can be no infection. However, there is another class of cases which go still farther to throw doubts on the truth of this doctrine. A gentleman was exposed to infection when in London. A day or two afterwards, he set off for Ireland, where his family resided. He made some stay at Cheltenham, and while there, there appeared on the inner prepuce two or three small indurations or tubercles. He showed them to a surgeon, who convinced himself that there was no ulceration, and did not believe the affection to be venereal. After a short inter- val, he returned to Ireland, these indurations still existing, and infected his wife, who suffered from primary sores. A gentleman had an induration on the penis, which remained after the healing of a chancre. He suffered repeatedly from secondary symptoms, which were as often removed by appropriate treatment; but the induration always remained. At length, when a considerable interval had passed without a relapse, and he believed himself to be finally cured, he married, though the induration was not removed. His wife was infected. Cases of this kind might be multiplied without difficulty, and almost necessarily lead to the inference that infection may take place from the contact of a simple chancrous thickening, although no ulceration whatever is present. A misconception of this truth has often led to consequences which are most lamentable. In a considerable propor- tion of those cases in which a wife has been infected in consequence of marriage with a man laboring under syphilis, the communication seems to have taken place from the cicatrix of a sore which has been healed.—G. G. B.]