Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The works of John Hunter. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![What happens in the inoculation of the smallpox strengthens this opinion. Let the symptoms of the patient from whom the matter is taken be good or bad; let it be from one who has had a great many pustules, or from one who has had but few ; let it be from the confluent or distinct kind, applied in a large quantity or a small one, it produces always the same effect. This could only be known by the great num- bers that have been inoculated under all these different circumstances3. §.5. Of the Poison being the same in Gonorrhoea and in Chancre. It has been supposed by many that the gonorrhoea and the chancre arise from two distinct poisons; and their opinion seems to have some foundation, when we consider only the different appearances of the two symptoms, and the different methods of cure; which, with respect to the nature of many diseases, is too often all we have to lead our judge- ment. Yet, if we take up this question upon other grounds, and also have recourse to experiments, the result of which we can absolutely de- pend upon, we shall find this notion to be erroneous. If we attend to the manner in which the venereal poison was com- municated to the inhabitants of the islands of the South Seas, there are many circumstances which tend to throw light upon the present ques- tion. It has been supposed, as no mention is made of a gonorrhoea at Otaheite, that it must have been the chancre that was first introduced into that island, and that of course nothing but a chancre could be pro- pagated there; for as no gonorrhoea had been communicated, no such disease could take place. But if wre w'ere to reason upon all the probable circumstances attending the voyages to that part of the world, we should conclude the contrary : for it was almost impossible to carry a chancre so long a voyage without its destroying the penis ; while we know from experience that a gonorrhoea may continue for a great length of time. It is mentioned in Cook’s voyage, that the people of Otaheite who had this disease went into the country and were cured ; but when it became a pox it was then incurable. This shows that the disease which they had must have been a gonorrhoea, for we know that it is only a gonor- * [Sir E. Home has here added a note, in which he calls in question the truth of this doctrine, as far as regards smallpox. He says that he has in many instances diluted variolous matter, and always found that the disease produced from such matter was milder than when employed for inoculation in an undiluted state. However, in the venereal disease it must be acknowledged that there are no facts which prove the exist- ence of a similar difference in the virulence of the contagion, or would justify the con- clusion that the variations in the symptoms depend on any other cause than the consti- tution arid habit of the recipient.]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21996635_0002_0163.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
