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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![stricture or diseased prostate gland is to be suspected; and inquiry should be made into the circumstances of making water, whether the stream is smaller than common, whether there be any difficulty in void- ing it, and whether the calls to make it are frequent. If there should be such symptoms, a bougie, of a size rather less than common, ought to be used, which, if there is a stricture, will stop when it reaches it; and if it passes on to the bladder with tolerable ease, the disease is probably in the prostate gland, which should be next examined. But more fully of both these complaints hereafter.0 §.3. Of the Cure of Gleets—constitutionally—locally. As this discharge has no specific quality, but depends upon the con- stitution of the patient or nature of the parts themselves, there can be no certain or fixed method of cure ; and as it is very difficult to find out the true nature of different constitutions or of parts, it becomes equally difficult to prescribe with certainty the medicines that will best suit this disease; for so great is the variety in constitutions, that what in one case proves a cure will in another aggravate the complaint. There are two ways of attempting the cure of this complaint : con- stitutionally, or locally. Medicines, taken into the constitution with a view to the cure of gleet, may be supposed to act in three ways : as specifics'^, strength- ened, and astringents. f It may be necessary to remark here, that by specific I do not mean a specific for the disease, but only such medicines as act specifically on the parts concerned, as the turpentines, cantharides, &c. a [A gleet may arise from any source of irritation in any part of the urinary pas- sages, or even in the neighbourhood. Haemorrhoids are a frequent cause, and, in children, worms in the intestines. In like manner it may be occasioned by a calculus, or by other disease in the bladder or kidneys, and still more commonly, as the author has stated, by stricture in the urethra. But perhaps the most common cause, if we except stricture, is some derangement in the secretion of the urine, by which that fluid is ren- dered too acid or alkaline, and is converted into a perpetual source of irritation, occa- sioning various derangements of the urinary organs, and none, at least in those who have suffered from gonorrhoea, more frequently than gleet. The cure of a gleet depends chiefly on the discovery, and the removal of the causes which excite it. While these continue, the effect of any remedies which are calculated to act directly on the discharge is generally inadequate, and at the best temporary. When the source of irritation, whatever it may be, is taken away, there is seldom much difficulty in repressing the excessive secretion from the urethra. The same remark applies to leucorrhoea in women. This is very generally kept up by some uterine derangement, as amenorrhoea, or irritability of the os uteri. While this derangement subsists, no remedies are effectual: but if it is first corrected by appropri- ate treatment, the discharge may usually be arrested, without great difficulty, by a little perseverance in the use of the commonest astringents.]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21996635_0002_0241.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
