It is peculiarly unfortunate for the unhappy person who contracts this disease, that it lies under a sort of disgrace. This renders disguise necessary, and makes the patient either conceal his disorder altogether, or apply to those who promise a sudden and secret cure; but who, in fact, only remove the symptoms for a time, while they fix the disease deeper in the habit. By this means a slight infection, which might have been easily removed, is often converted into an obstinate, and sometimes incurable malady.
Another unfavourable circumstance attending this disease is, that it assumes a variety of different shapes, and may with more propriety be called an assemblage of diseases, than a single one. No two diseases can require a more different mode of treatment than this does in its different stages. Hence the folly and danger of trusting to any particular nostrum for the cure of it. Such nostrums are, however, generally administered in the same manner to all who apply for them, without the least regard to the state of the disease, the constitution of the patient, the degree of infection, and a thousand other circumstances of the utmost importance.
Though the venereal disease is generally the fruit of unlawful embraces, yet it may be communicated to the innocent as well as the guilty. Infants, nurses, midwives, and married women whose husbands lead dissolute lives, are often affected with it, and frequently lose their lives by not being aware of their danger in due time. The unhappy condition of such persons will certainly plead our excuse, if any excuse be necessary, for endeavouring to point out the symptoms and cure of this too common disease.
To enumerate all its different symptoms, however, and to trace the disease minutely through its various stages, would require a much larger space than falls to this part of my subject; I shall therefore confine my observations chiefly to circumstances of importance, omitting such as are either trifling, or which occur but seldom. I shall likewise pass over the history of the disease, with the different methods of treatment which it has undergone, since it was first introduced into Europe, and many other circumstances of a similar nature; all of which, though they might tend to amuse the reader, yet could afford him little or no useful knowledge.
OF THE VIRULENT GONORRHŒA.
The Virulent Gonorrhœa is an involuntary discharge of infectious mucus from the parts of generation in either sex. It generally makes its appearance within eight or ten days after the infection has been received; sometimes it appears in two or three days, and at other times not before the end of four or five weeks. Previous to the discharge, the patient feels an itching, with a small degree of pain in the genitals. Afterwards a thin glary matter begins to distil from the urinary passage, which stains the linen, and occasions a small degree of titillation, particularly at the time of making water; this gradually increasing, arises at length to a degree of heat and pain, which are chiefly perceived about the extremity of the urinary passage, where a slight degree of redness and inflammation likewise begins to appear.
As the disorder advances, the pain, heat of the urine, and running, increase, while fresh symptoms daily ensue. In men the erections become painful and involuntary, and are more frequent and lasting than when natural. This symptom is most troublesome when the patient is warm in bed.
The pain which was at first only perceived towards the extremity, now begins to reach up all the urinary passage, and is more intense just after the patient has done making water. The running gradually recedes from the colour of semen, grows yellow, and at length puts on the appearance of mucus.
When the disorder has arrived at its height, all the symptoms are more intense; the heat of the urine is so great, that the patient dreads the making water; and though he feels a constant inclination this way, yet it is rendered with the greatest difficulty, and often only by drops; the involuntary erections now become extremely painful and frequent; there is also a pain, heat, and sense of fulness about the seat, and the running is plentiful and sharp, of a brown, greenish, and sometimes of a bloody colour.
By a proper treatment, the violence of the symptoms gradually abates; the heat and urine goes off, the involuntary and painful erections, and the heat and pain about the seat, become easier; and the running also gradually decreases, grows whiter and thicker, till at last it entirely disappears.