not have given a clear description of the venereal disease. They may not have understood the nature of it; they may not have understood the various relations in which the different symptoms are to be viewed. Supposing we saw a person with a certain eruption, we should not know, (unless previously informed) that the eruption arose from a sore the patient had had weeks or months before. It may be, then, that a long time may have elapsed before the relation of the symptoms to each other was comprehended. We find many instances in the history of our art, where things that appear to us most obvious must have been overlooked for a long time. Although a knowledge of the smallpox existed for centuries, yet people were ignorant that that disease was contagious. This is only circumstance of modern knowledge. The smallpox, measles, and scarlet-fever were confounded together for centuries; and no distinction was made between these three affections till a comparatively recent time. Indeed, between the measles and scarlet-fever no distinction was made till about the middle of the last century. That the mere silence of persons who have written on a subject, respecting some parts of its history, does not prove that what they omitted to notice did not exist, we have clear evidence from other considerations. Now Mr. Hunter, who must be deemed to have been a man of great knowledge, took much pains in investigating the venereal disease. The late Mr. John Pearson

was a man of extensive learning, and he also laboured in the examination of the subject; but neither of those gentlemen was acquainted with gonorrhoeal ophthalmia, or syphilitic affections of the eyes, in which organs the disease has always been strongly marked. Now, if persons, two or three hundred years hence, were to argue that such diseases did not exist now, because these gentlemen had not mentioned them, they would come to a very wrong conclusion. In the same way, I apprehend, we should adopt an erroneous supposition, if we imagined that the venereal disease did not exist in ancient times, because the medical writers of those times have not given a clear description of it."

CHAPTER II.

INOCULATION, HOW FAR USEFUL IN FORMING A DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS IN SYPHILITIC DISEASES.

PRIOR to the time of Hunter, inoculation had been practised in investigating the nature of venereal diseases; but as the experiments instituted by that distinguished surgeon are among the first of which we have a detailed description, I shall commence by giving an abstract of them, as contained in his work. Two punctures were made on the penis, with a lancet dipped in venereal matter from a gonorrhea; one puncture on the glans, the other on the prepuce. The immediate effect of the operation was an itching in the inoculated part, inflammation succeeded, and a "speck" formed where the puncture had been made; this was touched with caustic, and dressed with calomel ointment. The slough having come away, it was again cauterized; and the operation was repeated at each appearance of the speck, with similar results. Four months after the healing of the ulcer on the prepuce, the chancre broke out again, and healed without any application; that on the

glans, however, remained perfect. perfect. During this time, a swelling of the glands of the right groin took place, which was resolved by mercurial frictions. Two months after the disappearance of the bubo, pain was experienced in swallowing; and, upon examination, a small ulcer was discovered in one of the tonsils, for the cure of which mercury was resorted to. About three months after, "copper-coloured blotches" broke out on the skin, and the ulcer in the tonsil re-appeared, for which mercury was again exhibited, but not in sufficient quantity to arrest the progress of the disease: a relapse again took place, for which mercury was freely administered, and after a period of three years a cure was permanently effected.

This experiment of Hunter's is now almost universally acknowledged to be as inconclusive as it is imperfect. The spontaneous healing of the chancres, an effect which, according to the opinions of that day, could not be brought about without the aid of mercury; the occurrence of bubo, which, in all probability, was merely consequent on the irritation produced by the process of inoculation; the ulcers of the throat, the nature of which is undefined; the supervention of coppercoloured blotches,-symptoms vaguely described in an individual under treatment, moreover, for three years, and the probability of renewed infection during that period; all these circumstances taken together must afford but slender proofs of

the identity of the matter of gonorrhoea and chancre, or the nature of the constitutional symptoms likely to follow such an experiment. The first conclusive experiments, which have been fully substantiated by all subsequent manipulators, are those recorded by Benjamin Bell, viz.

Two young students having obtained gonorrhoeal matter from patients labouring under that disease, placed it between the prepuce and glans, and allowed it to remain in that situation for twentyfour hours. In one, a considerable degree of inflammation, followed by a discharge of fœtid matter from the urethra, was the result; but these symptoms of "bastard gonorrhoea" shortly disappeared under the use of bread cataplasms, with a solution of acetate of lead, laxatives, and a severe regimen. No chancres followed. In the other, inflammation did not run to such a height; but the matter having made its way into the urethra, he was attacked on the second day by a discharge from that passage, attended with a considerable degree of pain, which continued for a year. This gentleman, having suffered so severely, instituted no further experiments. His fellow-student, however, persevered, and shortly after the subsidence of inflammatory symptoms, consequent on the former inoculation, introduced gonorrheal matter into the substance of the glans, which he repeated on three several occasions, but without being able to produce chancres. Finally, he inserted, on the