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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    When blennorrhagic discharges, so called, resulting from the in- flammation of mucous membranes, are studied with care, it is found that the more intense the inflammation is, and the deeper it penetrates into the submucous cellular tissue, the larger proportion do the pus- globules bear to the mucous element; and when the secretion comes from a neighboring abscess, or from an ulcer of the mucous mem- brane, the mucus may be entirely wanting. It is astonishing that Hunter needed the case of pleurisy with false membranes, which he quotes, in order to understand how matter is secreted in the urethra. He and his followers should have been enlightened on this point by what takes place on the glans and prepuce in balanitis, and by the phenomena observed in coryza, bronchitis, and purulent ophthalmia. In this chapter, which is so admirably calculated to prove that chancre and gonorrhoea are two different diseases, we see what vain efforts Hunter makes to prove that the mucous membrane of the urethra is incapable of ulceration, although he gives an instance of it himself. Like all the other mucous membranes, that of the urethra may be the seat of ulcers, under the influence either of a chancre or of a simple inflammation; and if Hunter thought that he never met with ulcerations in this canal, Astruc, Frank, Bell, Wiseman, Howard, Ca- puron, Spangenberg, Swediaur, Thomas Bartholin, Teytaud, Lisfranc, and myself, have found them at different depths.—Eicord.] • [Editor.—Cockburne, in his work, entitled The Symptoms, Nature, Cause, and Cure of Gonorrhoea, London, 1115, was the first to prove that gonor- rhoea is not a flow of semen. The term blennorrhagia, which is in use with the French, is preferable to gonorrhoea, but it is thought best to adopt the latter in the present translation, both to make it coincide with Hunter's use of the word, and because it is almost universally in vogue in this country. It must be understood, however, as a generic term, including not only inflammatory discharges from all the mucous surfaces of the male and female genital organs, but also discharges from any of the accessible mucous membranes of the body, when directly or indirectly dependent upon the former, or upon sexual intercourse. Hence we may speak of gonorrhoea of the urethra, of the vagina, of the uterus, of the anus, of the eye, etc.] § 1. Of the Time between the Application of the Poison, and Effect. In most diseases there is a certain time between the application of the cause and the appearance of the effect. In the venereal disease this time is found to vary considerably, owing probably to the state of the constitution when the infection was received. Each form of the disease also varies in this respect; the gonorrhoea and chancre being earlier in their appearance after contamination than the lues venerea and of the two former, the gonorrhoea appearing sooner than the chancre. In the gonorrhoea, the times of appearance are very differ-