On the pathology and treatment of gonorrhœa / by J.L. Milton.

  • Milton, J. L. (John Laws), 1820-1898.
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the pathology and treatment of gonorrhœa / by J.L. Milton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    said of at least two or three antecedent symptoms. Among many gonor- rhoea patients some will be sure to have the disease in a severe form, and I should say that the constant recurrence of thick discharge, turgescence of the penis, scalding and chordee, could not fail to rivet the attention of the most superficial observers. In every community yet discovered, where the inhabitants were found to be capable of distinguishing the right hand from the left and daylight from darkness, it has been observed, I believe without a single instance to the contrary, that if gonorrhoea had settled among them, it enjoyed not merely a local habitation but a name also. For this, among many other reasons, I believe that gonorrhoea was totally unknown to the Romans. Even supjDOsing, what seems to me incredible, that it had by chance es- caped the observation of Celsus, the entire absence of all mention of it, in the works of Horace, Juvenal, and Persius is, in my opinion, sufficient to establish the position I have taken up. I consider it as certain that, had gonorrhoea existed at all in Rome at their time, they would have known of the fact ; and most improbable that, had they been acquainted with the disease, they would have failed to notice it. They were not likely to be restrained by any scruples of delicacy from touching upon such a ques- tion, for no set of men ever exercised less reticence in dealing with these topics than the Roman satirists ; Juvenal in particular was certainly out- spoken enough, and might be said to write professedly about such mat- ters. For much the same reasons too I must entirely reject the evidence of Cicero, whom M. Chabalier arrays in his cause on the strength of a passage to the effect, that those who are incontinent suffer from dysuria, a term which seems to have meant indifferently stricture and 'strangury. But the passage, if it can be considered to prove anything at all, shows that Cicero was totally unacquainted with gonorrhoea. Strangury is by no means a constant sequela Of this affection, and not unfrequently attacks persons who have never been affected at all. Even in the incontinent, gonorrhoea is not in any way a necessary medium. I j)resume M. Chabalier is aware that the first Napoleon suffered rather severely from strangury during the Russian camgaign, and was at all times incontinent enough ; yet there is no evidence that he ever laid the foundation for the strangury by catching a gonorrhoea. Lastly, I must express my conviction that Cicero was not at all likely to have been so familiar with a disease, unknown to Juvenal and Celsus, as to make his opinion of any weight. Indeed I ought perhaps to say that the words quoted seem to me as destitute of anything like a definite meaning, or a basis of truthful observation, as a passage in Pliny or Rhazes generally is. M. Chabalier next quotes the very doubtful authority of John Mesue, a Syriac or Persian writer, whose era, to begin upon, is so uncertain that biographers differ as to the date of his death by six or seven and twenty