On the pathology and treatment of gonorrhoea / by J.L. Milton.
- Milton, J. L. (John Laws), 1820-1898
- Date:
- 1871
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On the pathology and treatment of gonorrhoea / by J.L. Milton. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
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![in the lower organization of the parts originally attacked in the female, so that gonorrhoea does not excite a disorder with such extended ramifications as in the male. As to this disorder arising from repulsion, considering how often this idea has been refuted, it may now be assumed that it is sheer waste of time to argue with persons who make use of it. You might as well dispute with a man who denied the circulation of the blood, or that the earth moves round the sun. The very act of running counter to all common sense and experience has a charm for some minds. A village schoolmaster who couldn't speak twenty words without some mistake, once told me with an air of profound wisdom that he didn't believe all as Sir Isaac Newton taught. He had once been to London and heard a great preacher lecture there on the figure of the earth, who quoted the Bible and then said, Would any man stand on the top of a high mountain, or by the shore of the ocean, and look on it and then tell him that the earth was round? He should like to see that man. The preacher was wise in his generation; of course he didn't see the man, but he stopped all argument by sticking at no assertion however outrageous. In the same way, those who talk of repulsion are wise. They use a figure of speech patients can understand, and they save themselves the trouble of thinking. They begin with assertions which, having no other value, are clearly expected to derive weight enough from the fact of their being patronized by the speaker or author in question, and these assertions are supported by arguments which have every merit except that of a base to rest upon. Gonorrhceal ophthalmia is a disorder which admits of no trifling, and therefore the surgeon should begin as energetically as possible. I believe the best application is the nitrate of silver, in weak solution at first, and rapidly increasing the strength til] even the solid form can be used. I advise it to be applied two or three times a day at least, four grains to an ounce ; and if this should not arrest the march of the complaint, go, without loss of time, to the solid nitrate. I have never seen it fail if used early and freely enough.1 If there be any chance of destruction of the cornea, free incision should be resorted to. Mr. Travers2 advises division of the external canthus and mercury, but Mr. Coote's advice to remove the swelled mucous membrane 1 Brown, Dublin Quarterly Journal, Aug., 1856. 2 Guy's Hospital Reports* 1857, p. 192.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21067508_0210.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
