In 1762 J. A. Esq; contracted a virulent gonorrhœa at Naples. There he applied to the famous T ***. Having been some months in his hands, without receiving any benefit, he went to Rome, where affairs of importance called for his presence; and there likewise he was attended for a long while by some reputed practitioner, but with no better success.
From Rome he went to Florence, where he was also under the hands of the best surgeons.
Two years were already wasted in fruitless attempts, when the patient set off for Paris, and there was for two years together under the care of the celebrated Daran. During that time he underwent a long course of remedies. The running indeed disappeared, when dissicative bougies were made use of, but returned soon after.
A circumstance, however, which must appear strange at first sight is, that the return of the flux was periodical. It regularly broke out every year at the beginning of spring and autumn.
From Paris the patient came over to London, his place of abode. Anxious to be cured, he applied to an eminent surgeon, (whom it would not be candid to name) who for eighteen months attended him with great assiduity. Various were the remedies employed to subdue the running. Among them the suppuration was again tried, and again did the running stop by the use of dissicative bougies. When stopt the patient was assured of his being cured, and to remove every doubt about it, was advised to drink punch pretty freely. So he did; but no sooner was the tryal made, than the running returned with greater violence. Vexed at so many disappointments, the patient was determined to resign his fate to Nature alone, and for a while did not alter his resolution, till hearing (from a friend) of some striking cures of similar complaints I had performed, that he might not have any reproach to make to himself, he resolved to venture a last experiment.
When he applied[13] to me, his running was just coming upon him; it was of a deep green, both scalding and abundant. The erection of the penis was accompanied with excruciating pains, and the muscular tunic of the urethra so crispated, that the extremity of the glands was retracted inwards. The urine spouted out in a small stream, slowly and with difficulty. Some time he experienced a sort of retention, and never could eject it without passing a bougie in the neck of the bladder once a day.
My first care was to relax the contracted parts; which I did by mucilaginous injections. In a week’s time no pain was felt in erections; the summit of the glands again became proeminous, and the scalding was considerably abated.
Suspecting the whole mass of the lymph to be infected, as the patient was rather of a plethoric complexion, I made him for a long while go through a course of sudorific draughts.
When his humours were judged well purified, I employed suppurative remedies, as I have explained before, and in about three months time the ulcers were consolidated.
There are now nearly five years that this gentleman has found himself perfectly cured. Ever since the difficulty[14] of making water has diminished every day; and these eighteen months past he did not need the introducing of a bougie in the neck of the bladder.