[110] Of this nature was probably the ulcer mentioned by Mr. Wiseman, at least if we may judge from his very short description: “It had eat deep into her left breast, and was fixed to the ribs, but not with much pain. In progress of time, the lips inverted, and united, as it were, and lay covered with a crusty scab; the humour in the mean while spent itself upon the nerves, &c. She lived long, and, in her latter age, tolerably healthful.” Chirurg. Treatises, Vol. I. p. 165.
[111] Extirpation is the only certain cure of this disease; and it is at all times the quickest and the best; but, by eschoritics, we may sometimes procure cicatrization, at least if the gland have shrunk, and most of its substance been destroyed.
[112] It is to be regretted, that some who belong to our profession, reason upon the nature of ulcers, not from appearances and characteristic marks, but from the patients manner of life, or the idea which they have formed of the country whence they come. I remember two instances of people who came from the Hebrides, the one with a cancer of the lip, the other with a cancerous ulcer on the neck, both fungous, and possessing the burning pain, and every character of cancer; but as the sibbens unluckily prevailed in that country, it was thought that the patients might have received this infection, and accordingly were, by a full consultation of surgeons, condemned to undergo a course of mercury. The lip was, in three days, greatly worse; the mercury was omitted, and the patient cured by an operation. The sore on the neck was instantly exasperated, and the patient, to use the words of Hildanus, “had her soul speedily sent to heaven.”
[113] These are sometimes very irregular in their shape, and have their sides very thin; so that, at first sight, they appear like cavities formed by the separation of the fibres of the part.
[114] That is to say, the sore is rather flabby than fungous; for cancerous ulcers which begin superficially, and without previous abscess, remain a considerable time without forming fungus; but when an abscess bursts, and the skin ulcerates in consequence, then the sore is not superficial, but communicates with the abscess, which forms fungus quickly.
[115] Heister’s Institut. Vol. I. p. 229.
[116] Bell on Ulcers, p. 319.
[117] Dioni’s Chir. p. 248.
[118] Does inflammation depend upon the hardness or softness of the inflamed part?
[119] One should expect, that the distension of the vessels would diminish the cause of obstruction, or remove it altogether.