[74] It is very seldom that a stump unites at first, if amputation be performed on account of mortification; at least if the operation be not delayed until the health and strength be fully re-established: But this can very seldom be the case; for, in most cases, the state of the bones, and the disease of the part itself, prevents recovery from taking place beyond a certain degree, and also prevents us from delaying beyond a limited time. The system, therefore, is not allowed to recover fully from the tendency to the action of descent, and union does not take place. In the case which was formerly mentioned, the first stump did not adhere fully, but the second succeeded better, because then the system suffered more from the state of the diseased bones, &c. than from the previous mortification, and, therefore, it had not the same inability to undergo the healing action.
[75] In most specific inflammations, if not in every one, the redness is never of the bright scarlet colour, but always more or less purple, or dusky; but this may take place without any specific action. The sensation is also sometimes different.
[76] The neighbouring glands sometimes swell and suppurate, but they heal kindly, and the disease proceeds no farther.
[77] From this, it would appear, that his throat had been at one time healed.
[78] Many of these have been confounded with the venereal disease, and treated accordingly.
It were much to be desired that they should be accurately described, and one kind distinguished from another, for there are probably many different species.
[79] Some actions cannot be induced during the continuance of others. Other actions can, in these circumstances, be formed, and displace completely the former action. A third set seem to give a modification to the original disease: They change it to a certain degree; but the change is not salutary, and they never displace it. The mercurial action, when induced during the existence of some of the diseases which I am describing, comes under the last, or third class. At first, during the formation of the mercurial action, the former diseased action is interrupted, in the same way as the natural action is injured during the period of formation of other actions, when no peculiar disease previously existed. On this account, the sore assumes a better appearance; and, if the action be nearly terminating naturally (as some actions do, and as the primary action in these diseases more readily does than the secondary), it quickly heals up; but, if this be not the case, the appearances soon change, and the disease becomes much worse.
[80] There are some cases, described by different authors, of affections of the nipples and breasts, in which the ulcers appear to have been chiefly of the phagedenic kind.
[81] Cases of this kind may be found in Mr. Hunter’s Treatise on the Venereal Disease, and in the third volume of the Medical Transactions.
[82] This disease is communicated even by drinking out of the same vessel with an infected person, even although that person have no sores on the lips, but only in the throat. The contagion then must either be dissolved in the saliva, or remain very powerful, even when reduced to a state of halitus.