A treatise on syphilis in which the history, symptoms, and method of treating every form of that disease are fully considered / By John Bacot.

  • Bacot, John, 1780-1870.
Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on syphilis in which the history, symptoms, and method of treating every form of that disease are fully considered / By John Bacot. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    ugly-looking sores on different jiarts of the prejiuce, and two on the glans penis, which are compared, in ap])earance, to holes made by a rusty nail in a piece of mahogany or logwood : the general health was also proportionably deranged. The effect of the depletory plan of treatment above-mentioned was magical; but although Mr. Ferguson had no doubt that the violence of the inflammation had superseded the specific conta- gion, yet, in compliance with old custom and the patient’s fears, a mercurial course was afterwards pursued. Another curious circumstance relative to this case must not be forgotten: this officer had been infected by an opera-dancer at Lisbon, who continued for several months afterwards on the stage, occasionally infecting others, but without communicating a disease of any peculiar or extraordinary malignancy in any other instance. Mr. Ferguson makes one other obser- vation, which I shall extract, since it is highly deserv- ing of consideration : — “ I think it is probable (he says) that, by the resistance we in England have op- posed to syphilis and variola, we have retarded their natural decay among us ; that we have made both more rare I believe, and that we may finally succeed in extinguishing them I devoutly hope ; but whenever we are revisited by either the one or the other, I fear they will not come to us disarmed of their terrors.” There are three points in the above narrative which I think ought to be borne in mind, because they are not only of considerable importance in themselves, but because I shall have occasion to revert to them more particu- larly on a future occasion ; they are these — 1st, the cure of the officer’s ulcers by bleeding, purging, &c.; 2dly, the fact of the same woman communicating a disease of a milder nature to other men ; and, Sdly, the conjecture that probably a more severe forai of s}Tphilis may at some future time appear amongst us. Pursuing the course of my history, I have next to mention a very important document, for which we are indebted to the late Mr. Rose, who, having himself served several years in Portugal, was well qualified to form an estimate of the comparative merits of the two plans of