Volume 1

Remarks on some of the opinions of the late Mr. John Hunter respecting the venereal disease; in a letter to Jeseph Adams / [Henry Clutterbuck].

  • Clutterbuck, Henry, 1767-1856
Date:
1799
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on some of the opinions of the late Mr. John Hunter respecting the venereal disease; in a letter to Jeseph Adams / [Henry Clutterbuck]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    influence the susceptibility, and which we da not at all understand. Whilst, therefore, we are so much in the dark respecting the susceptibility of the sys¬ tem, or its different parts, we can judge very imperfectly of the effects of remedies; and our judgement of the truth of Mr. Hunter’s opinion can only be formed, by a consideration of all the different circumstances. Though the occasional reappearance of the symptoms gives a colour of probability to the notion, that mer¬ cury does not remove latent contamination, it is yet not conclusive ; for the fact may be otherwise accounted for. In the first place, it is not one of frequent occurrence. From my own observation I should say, and the opinion is not singular, that when mercury is carefully employed, and its action kept up for a considerable length of time, the secondary symptoms will very rarely appear. In the greater number of instances of the secondary disease, which have occurred to my observation, I have been able to ascertain, that mercury had been employed in a superficial manner, either from carelessness in the patient, or from a preconceived theory in the mind of the practitioner. “ The venereal action,” Mr, Hunter