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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    CHAPTER II. THE MODE OF VENEREAL INFECTION. Every infectious disease has its peculiar manner of being caught; and among mankind there is generally something peculiar in the way of life, or some attending circumstance, which exposes them at one time or other to contract such diseases, and which, if avoided, would prevent their propagation. The itch, for instance,, is generally caught by a species of civility, the shaking of hands; therefore, the hand is most commonly the part first affected. And as the venereal infection is generally caught by the connection between the sexes, the parts of generation commonly suffer first. From this circumstance, people do not suspect this disease when the symptoms are anywhere else, while they always suspect it in every complaint of those parts. In the lower class of people, one as naturally thinks of the itch when there is an eruption between the fingers, as in young men of the vene- real disease whose genitals are affected; but as every secreting surface, whether cuticle or not cuticle (as was explained before), is liable to be infected by the venereal poison when it is applied to it, it is possible for many other parts besides the genitals to receive this disease. There- fore, it appears in the anus, mouth, nose, eyes, ears, and, as has been said, in the nipples of women who suckle children affected by it in their mouths, which children have been infected in the birth from the diseased parts of the mother. [RiCORD.—The infection of nurses by children, and children by nurses, is perhaps one of the most interesting questions connected with the propagation of syphilis, and one which we are called upon to answer every day. I believe, with Hunter, that children can communicate only the pri- mary affection (chancre), which they may contract either during delivery or after birth. Since the first edition of this work, no incontestable observation to the contrary has appeared; and M. Cullerier, Surgeon to the Lourcine Hospital, has lately read an interesting paper before the Academy of Medicine, in support of this opinion.]