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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    tuated ; at least so far as for their history and character to be accurately fixed. But the diseases which have been added to the cata¬ logue, since the earlier ages of medicine, are not numerous, and their character is well as- certained. The truth is, that we have no ac¬ counts of diseases, such as have occasionally appeared of late, and which have been sup¬ posed by Mr. Hunter to be derived from new poisons, previous to the appearance of the ve¬ nereal disease in Europe. And I cannot but consider the silence of medical history, in this respedl', as evidence nearly decisive against their present existence as new specific diseases. The cases in Celsus #, to which you refer, as instances of morbid poison, and which he de¬ nominates cancer in cole, have nothing in them which would induce me to adopt your idea. They present nothing but what is commonly observed in phagedenic, or, to use common language, ill-conditioned spreading ulcers, such as may be seen every day ; whilst not the least hint is given of their being communicable from one person to another. With respedl to what you suppose a law of morbid poisons, that loss of substance in their * De Medicinci, lib. 6. cap: 18. primary