Sketches of facts and opinions respecting the venereal disease. / by William Houlston, member of the Corporation of Surgeons; Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Medical Society of London; surgeon to the Philanthropic Reform, and to the Royal Universal Dispensary.

  • Houlston, William, 1755-1815
Date:
1794
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sketches of facts and opinions respecting the venereal disease. / by William Houlston, member of the Corporation of Surgeons; Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Medical Society of London; surgeon to the Philanthropic Reform, and to the Royal Universal Dispensary. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    C >5 ] Whether Gonorrhcea and Lues are not di- Jlintt difeafes. It has been afTerted, and maintained by a variety of ingenious arguments, that gonorr- hoea and lues venerea do not take their rife from the fame, but from different kinds of virus; and that the matter produced by one difeafe, is incapable, iffeparately applied, of producing the other. The lateff advocate for this doftrine is an ingenious medical profeffor in Edinburgh, and his arguments are principally thefe : iff, It appears, by attending to the hiftory of the Venereal Dileafe on it’s firfl introduc- tion into Europe, that the lues venerea was known many years before the gonorrhoea, as was alfo the cafe in China. In the ifland of Otaheite the fame thing obtains at prefent, for there the gonorrhoea is unknown, though the lues venerea is exceedingly common among the inhabitants*. * This is the language held by Dodfor Duncan in his Meaical Commentaries, (vol. 6.) but I apprehend it is not quite correct in point of fadf, as 1 am informed by my frend Mr. David Samwell, who was furgeon of Captain Cook's lhip the Discovery, that the natives of all the newly difeovered iflands that he vifited in the South Seas had the difeafe in every form, and in fadf, had it before the voyages of Capt. Cook were even at- tempted.—I am glad indeed of this opportunity of gra- tifying the zeal of my ingenious friend, in a matter