Practical observations on the venereal disease, and on the use of mercury / By Abraham Colles.

  • Colles, Abraham, 1773-1843.
Date:
1837
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Practical observations on the venereal disease, and on the use of mercury / By Abraham Colles. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and the symptoms often return; and that the same inconveniences often attend a large salivation, accompanied with a great inflam- -mation, from which many other dangerous symptoms also flow. “The venereal disorder returned to some after a regular saliva- tion, but was entirely removed by the following method, which I made use of to all who had this infection in a violent desree.” Here follows an account of his treatment by giving the patients large quantities of decoctum sarse, and also subjecting them to be sweated in a closed chair or bath :—‘‘ When they had bathed in this manner five or six times, I ordered a strong decoction of guiacum to be used instead of the former, and a Y fow grains of calomel to be taken an hour before they entered the bath; and in some cases | have directed two grains of the turbith mineral to be mixed with the calomel, which, though continued for a consider- able time, seldom affected the glands of the mouth, being deter- mined with such force to the surface of the body; and, if the expression may be allowed, mercury thus managed produces a salivation through the pores of the skin. When the salivary glands are in the least. affected, the use of mercurials is to be omitted till that symptom disappears. I ordered the bath three times. in a week; in some cases repeated it five or six times successively every day, and gradually remitted the use of it.” I shall not avail myself of the charitable construction put by Dr. Barry on the manner in which this woman contracted the dis- ease—viz: “that she had probably, in the course of her business, received the infection in her mouth”—as this would incline us to think that the ulcer of the lip was a secondary ulcer; I shall admit that it was a primary ulcer or chancre, without stopping to enquire how it was contracted. It is obvious, then, that the ulcers of the nipples must also have been primary ulcers or chancres, but from these the whole system became contaminated, for we find that pustules were spread over the whole body; and that these pustules, or that this eruption, had also seized upon the pudenda, we have proved by the statement, “that the pudenda soon after became inflamed, with a violent itching, which terminated in chancres that were attended with only a small discharge.” This general eruption on the surface, as well as those spots of eruption which appeared about the pudenda, it must be admitted, were secondary symptoms. ‘This account, of the general eruption having seized upon the pudenda, will be corroborated by the expe- rience of every surgeon who has been accustomed to treat the syphilitic complaints of females; for in them we almost univer- sally find that the pudenda and parts in their immediate vicinity are thickly beset with spots of the eruption, whieh, however, in general differ from those on the other parts of the body, by being moist, yielding a discharge having the appearance of an ulcerated surface. By the way, it is remarkable that, while this takes place in the venereal eruption of females, we find much fewer spots of the eruption appear on the genitals of men than on any other part of their body: From Dr. Barry’s account, it is plain that the hus-