The history of the early and present state of the venereal disease examined: wherein is shewn that mercury never was necessary for its cure, as well as the injurious consequences that result from its employment; at the same time pointing out approved modes of treatment founded on its pathology / [George Hume Weatherhead].

  • Weatherhead, G. Hume (George Hume), 1790?-1853
Date:
1841
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The history of the early and present state of the venereal disease examined: wherein is shewn that mercury never was necessary for its cure, as well as the injurious consequences that result from its employment; at the same time pointing out approved modes of treatment founded on its pathology / [George Hume Weatherhead]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    questionable what was exactly meant by carbun¬ cles in the penis; but there will be no doubt on this head after tracing the disease and the treat¬ ment on to a later period.* What the Arabian physicians have said on the subject has already been referred to. Among the Arabistse we find Constantinus Africanus treating of “ strictio viee, unde urina exit de vesica; ” f and Rolandus, who lived in the thir¬ teenth century, is the first whom the author has met with making mention of a bougie, properly so called. In the thirty-first chapter of the third book of his Surgery, he speaks of a “ tenta de cera' inserted into the orifice of the penis. The practice of applying escharotics to the cure of strictures is very ancient, and took its rise from the idea entertained of their nature : they were thought to be occasioned by caruncles, tubercles, or carnosities, as they were sometimes called, in the urinary canal; and it was the usual practice to treat all excrescences of this kind, wherever situate, by caustics. Aetius recommends a composition of vitriol, verdigris, and alum, for thymi in the pudenda : and we find one or all * The author has found but one (possible) allusion to this dis¬ ease among the Roman poets, and that is in Catullus :— “ Si lotium difficilius transibit.” t De Morb. Cogn. et Cur. lib. iv. c. 20.