An improved mode of employing mercury by fumigation to the whole body, exemplified by cases of its success. ... in various obstinate diseases of the skin, and especially in syphilitic affections / by Jonathan Green.

Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An improved mode of employing mercury by fumigation to the whole body, exemplified by cases of its success. ... in various obstinate diseases of the skin, and especially in syphilitic affections / by Jonathan Green. 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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    nations of that disease, when the practitioner is at a loss to determine whether the ailment is consequent on syphilitic taint of the system or not, or when the case resists his best efforts to relieve, in such cases a trial of a few mercurial fumigations will often determine the matter by the unexpected cure of the patient. 1 frequently find this to be the case, and name it as a guide, that my experience warrants me in recommending in some obstinate questionable complaints, often of the skin, as in cases of intractable Psoriasis and Lepra, which have gone the round of the medical profession, and resisted all usual means of cure; where the patients have declared there could be no syphilitic taint, and where there were no sufficient data that would lead to such conclusion ; yet a few mercurial fumi- gations would seem to tell more correctly by the yielding of the complaint. In short, I believe, that most of the obstinate cases of Lepra and Psoriasis, and ailments of that class, have latent Syphilis for their cause, or their obstinate continuance. Again, I think I have reason to conclude that sometimes a gorged state of unhealthy bile in the liver and biliary vessels is a frequent cause of the obstinacy of these complaints ; the means of remedy points out itself in dietary regulation, appropriate medicine, and the mercurial fumigations. The mercurial fumigations are, without doubt, to be advised in Syphilis and syphilitic ulcerations, whether primary, se- condary, or constitutional, with and without the aid of the internal administration of the medicine, and the usual external applications, as they may be indicated. They are to be re- commended in painful nodes, whether of the shins, scalp, or elsewhere, and in enlargement of parts ; in spots, blotches, or scaliness on the body, or parts of the body ; in cases of Pso- riasis and cracks, mostly on the hands, which commonly resist the best known means of treatment, including the sulphur fumigations. I have known one and all of these obstinate deviations from health yield to a well-advised course of mercurial fumigations, leading to the conclusion that such cases have often for their cause and continuance latent or hidden Syphilis in the system, although the patient himself may be unconscious of such taint, or that it has anything to do with the matter. In ulceration, or tendency to ulceration, in the nasal pas- sages, throat, fauces, palate, fissures of the tongue, lips, hands or other parts, (for syphilis will insiduously attack one or all parts,) the mercurial fumigations taken advisedly are more to be relied on as a means of cure than any other means that J know of. In such cases I not only give the general mercurial fumi-