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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![grains of calomel, made into fourteen pills, were taken, probably in ten or twelve days, for it was directed she should take one or two each day, as the bowels would allow; but although tinctura thebiiica was given, they purged so much as made it necessary to give no more in this way. But although so little mercury was taken, and had also run off consi- derably by the bowels, yet “ the ulceration of her mouth and cheeks did not spread, but was less painful and of a milder appearance; the blotches in her face and body grew paler, and such of them as had ulcer- ated healed apace and no new ones appeared. Unguentum cceruleum fortius” was therefore directed “ to be well rubbed into her legs and thighs twice a day, in small doses,” lest it should be determined to the bowels. “ In about ten or twelve days her griping and purging returned with violence, the ointment was therefore discontinued. At this time the blotches were all gone; the ulceration in her face and body were com- pletely healed, and those of her mouth nearly so.”—[Op. cit., p. 328.] The only remark I have to make on the cure is, that the quantity of mercury was not sufficient to cure chancres on the penis, making such rapid progress as those did in her mouth; nor could the same quantity of mercury cure venereal sores on the skin, which had made such rapid progress as they did in this case; and if we take in the effect this had upon her health, with the termination of the whole, I think we should pronounce it not venereal: for the specific circumstances, if it was ve- nereal, were just as uncommon as the mode of catching it. Many of these cases, suspected of being venereal, I have seen occa- sionally ; and although the patients recovered while under a course of mercury, yet on account of the want of attention in the practitioners to the very circumstances that would decide the disease to be either vene- real or not, I pass them over unnoticed. After having considered the cases themselves of those who had the teeth transplanted, let us also consider the persons from whom the teeth were taken; for I cannot help thinking that this will throw some light upon the subject. Let me suppose that the young girls from whom the teeth were taken really had the lues venerea, and that the teeth were of course also infected, which is a supposition most unfavourable to my real opinion, it appears to me that even in this case there can be no dif- ference between the gums of the girl from whom the tooth was taken, and the gums of the person who received it. If the ulceration took place in the last from contamination would not the socket in the girl from whom the tooth was taken likewise have ulcerated ? But this did not happen in any of them. I have here supposed the teeth capable of being contaminated; although I believe we have never yet seen them have this disease primarily, but only in consequence of its breaking out somewhere else, in the mouth, throat, or nose, and spreading to them.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21996635_0002_0507.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
