When the venereal disease has been neglected, or improperly treated, it often becomes a disorder of the habit. In this case the cure must be attempted by restoratives, as milk diet, the decoction of sarsaparilla, and such like, to which mercury may be added. It is a common practice in North Britain to send such patients to drink goat-whey. This is a very proper plan, providing the infection has been totally eradicated beforehand; but when that is not the case, and the patient trusts to the whey for finishing his cure, he will be often disappointed. I have frequently known the disease return with all its virulence after a course of goat-whey, even when that course had been thought quite sufficient for completing the cure.
One of the most unfortunate circumstances attending patients in this disease, is the necessity they are often laid under of hurrying the cure. This induces them to take medicine too fast, and to leave it off too soon. A few grains more of medicine, or a few days longer confinement, would often be sufficient to perform the cure; whereas, by neglect of these, a small degree of virulence is still left in the system, which gradually vitiates, and at length contaminates the whole mass. To avoid this, we would advise, that the patient should never leave off taking medicine immediately upon the disappearing of the symptoms, but continue it for some time after, gradually lessening the quantity, till there is reason to believe the disease is entirely eradicated.
It is not only difficult, but absolutely impossible, to ascertain the exact degree of virulence that may attend the disease; for which reason it will always be a much safer rule to continue the use of medicine too long, than to leave it off too soon. This seems to be the leading maxim of a modern practitioner of some note for the venereal disease, who always orders his patients to perform a quarantine of forty days, during which time he takes forty bottles of, I suppose, a strong decoction of sarsaparilla, or some other antivenereal simple. Whoever takes this method, and adds a sufficient quantity of corrosive sublimate, or some other active preparation of mercury to the decoction, will seldom fail to cure a confirmed lues.
It is peculiarly unfortunate for the cure of this disease, that not one in ten of those who contract it, are either able or willing to submit to a proper plan of regimen. The patient is willing to take medicine; but he must follow his business, and to prevent suspicions, must eat and drink like the rest of the family. This is the true source of nine-tenths, of all the mischief arising from venereal disease. I never knew the cure attended with any great difficulty or danger where the patient strictly followed the physician’s advice; but a volume would not be sufficient to point out the dreadful consequences which proceed from an opposite conduct. Schirrous testicles, ulcerous sore throats, madness, consumptions, carious bones, and a rotten progeny, are a few of the blessings derived from this source.
There is a species of false reasoning, with regard to this disease, which proves fatal to many. A person of a sound constitution contracts a slight degree of the disorder. He gets well without taking any great care, or using much medicine, and hence concludes, that this will always be the case. The next time the disease occurs, though ten times more virulent, he pursues the same course, and his constitution is ruined. Indeed, the different degrees of virulence in the small-pox are not greater than in this disease, though, as the learned Sydenham observes, in some cases the most skilful physicians cannot cure, and in others the most ignorant old women cannot kill the patient in that disorder. Though a good constitution is always in favour of the patient, yet too great stress may be laid upon it. It does not appear from observation, that the most robust constitution is able to overcome the virulence of the venereal contagion, after it has got into the habit. In this case, a proper course of medicine is always indispensably necessary.
Although it is impossible, on account of the different degrees of virulence, &c., to lay down fixed and certain rules, for the cure of this disease, yet the following general plan will always be found safe, and often successful, viz.: to bleed and administer gentle purges with diuretics during the inflammatory state, and, as soon as the symptoms of inflammation are abated, to administer mercury, in any form that may be most agreeable to the patient. The same medicine, assisted by the decoction of sarsaparilla, and a proper regimen, will not only secure the constitution against the further progress of a confirmed pox, but will generally perform a complete cure.
Although the venereal disease may not be a proper subject of discussion for regular families and the nursery, yet there are many individuals to whom the observations here made may be of service in that complaint. There is no disease which opens so wide a field for the quack, none in which he so completely picks the pocket and ruins the constitution of the ignorant and unwary. Mercury, though looked upon as a certain cure in every species of this disease, is only proper in one; and though every apothecary’s boy pretends to cure the venereal disease by it, there is no medicine oftener misapplied. Though mercury is a certain cure for the lues venerea, it is a medicine of so very active a nature that it cannot be administered with too much care; it is the chief ingredient in all the nostrums daily advertised for the cure of this disease, and those who value their health or their life, should beware of allowing themselves to become, in a matter so serious, the dupes of imposture.
CONCLUSION.
Courteous Reader,
In the Works of the renowned and famous philosopher, Aristotle, you have got laid before you a Collection of the best Observations on the Secrets of Nature, that ever the world was favoured with on the subject. Let me now entreat you, who have read them, and all those who may hereafter do so, to mark well what is therein contained, and thereby direct your future conduct, which you will find to your advantage. Whatever young and inconsiderate persons may think or say of what is herein contained, it is absolutely necessary to be known; and, when reduced to practice, may prove the happy means of preventing many fatal and lamentable consequences, which ignorance and inconsideration produce. Farewell.