[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. I have likewise observed ulcers on the lips, throat, and mouth, which at first had a very doubtful appearance; but they evidently are distinct from syphilis, and belong to the suppurating sores. When superficial, the buff-coloured matter, or inorganised substance which covers them, has a fibrous, or thready appearance, the margins are slightly tumid, and of a florid, or kind of pink colour. The application of caustic, or burnt alum, is often sufficient of itself to cure these; but small doses of mercury sometimes accelerate the cure. At other times these sores penetrate deeper, and affect the bones. The surface, which is deep, is covered with a thick yellow slough, like an overacting ulcer. The margins are tumid, ragged, and of a light, or pink colour. Sometimes the disease spreads along the gum, which becomes soft, ulcerated, and separates from the teeth, which very frequently become black, and, when the sockets are affected, drop out. I have not had an opportunity of observing these sores go the length of inducing constitutional symptoms. It is not easy to ascertain the cause of these sores; sometimes they succeed the use of mercury; but, at other times, it is impossible to blame any evident agent. The transplanting of teeth sometimes has been the mean of inducing sores similar to these; and, in these cases, the disease has generally passed for syphilis[81]. But although the venereal disease may have been inoculated in this manner, it is certain, from the appearance of the ulcers, from their rapid progress, and from the sudden effect produced by a very small quantity of mercury, that the disease, which is commonly induced by transplanting teeth, is not syphilitic. [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. Sibbens is another disease which has been very frequently confounded with syphilis, and is by many considered to be only a variety of that disease; but they evidently are different, as appears from the mode of infection, and the properties of the contagion[82], the appearance of the ulcers, their progress, and certain circumstances in their cure, particularly their requiring less mercury than venereal ulcers in the same state, and from their yielding readily to preparations of mercury, which do not accomplish a cure of syphilis. [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.