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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    the watery or serous part of the matter has spread farther; and at the outer edge of all it is darkest; this last appearance is owing to its being only water with a little slime, in which some of the tinge is sus- pended, which, when dry, gives a transparency to the part that takes off from the white color of the linen. It is very probable that there is a small extravasation of red blood in all the cases where the matter deviates from the common color, and to this the different tinges seem to be owing. As this matter arises from a specific inflammation, it has a greater tendency to putrefaction than common matter from a healthy sore, and has often a smell seemingly peculiar to itself.1 As it should appear that there is hardly a sufficient surface of the urethra inflamed to give the quantity of matter that is often produced, especially when we consider that the inflammation does in common go no farther than two or three inches from the external orifice, it is natural to suppose that the discharge is produced from other parts, the office of which is to form mucus for natural purposes, and which are, therefore, more capable of producing a great quantity upon slight irritations, which hardly give rise to inflammations. These parts, I have observed, are the glands of the urethra. In many cases where the glands have not been after death so much swelled as to be felt externally, and where I have had an opportunity of examining the urethra of those who have had this complaint upon them, I have always been able to discover that the ducts or lacunse leading from them have been loaded with matter, and more visible than in the natural state. I have observed, too, that the formation of the matter is not confined to these glands entirely, for the inner surface of the urethra is com- monly in such a state as not to suffer the urine to pass without con- siderable pain, and therefore, most probably, this internal membrane is also affected in such a manner as to secrete a matter. This discharge, in common cases, should seem not to arise much farther back in the urethra than where the pain is felt, although it is commonly believed that it comes from the whole of the canal, and even from Cowper's glands and the prostate, and even what are called the vesiculaB seminales.2 But the truth of this I very much doubt. My reason for supposing that it comes only from the surface where the pain is, are the following: If the matter arose from the whole surface of the urethra, and from the glands near the bladder, there would certainly be many other symptoms than do actually occur; for instance, if all the parts of the urethra beyond the bulb, or even in the bulb, were affected so as to secrete matter, that matter would be gradually ' It is a great mistake to look for a specific sign in the peculiar odor of gonorrhceal discharges, or to believe that virulent pus has a greater tendency to putrefaction than ordinary pus. I have preserved, for a very long time, specimens of pus from inocula- ble chancres ; muco-pus from gonorrhoeas, and pus furnished by non-venereal affec- tions, and I have observed no marked difference in them, except, perhaps, that the virulent pus continued liquid the longest. As to the difference in the smell, it is due to the peculiar seat of the secretion.—Ricokd. 2 These bags are certainly not reservoirs for the semen. The difference between the contents of them and the semen gave me the first suspicion of this ; and from several experiments on the human body, as also a comparative view of them in other animals, I have been able to prove that they are not. [Hunter is here mistaken.—Ricobd.]