Marat evidently had in mind other medical works. In the Essay on
Gleets[5] he says, “If this essay should meet with approbation, I shall
offer to the public a new method of radically curing gonorrhœas in a
short time.” And again, in the tract on Diseases of the Eye,[6] speaking
of the action of mercury, “A complete Examination of them would swell
these Sheets beyond the proposed Size; I therefore reserve it for the
Subject of a future Publication.” It may, I think, be safely said that
these intentions were never carried out. Watt, in his _Bibliotheca
Britannica_, gives the titles of the two tracts here reprinted, but
makes no mention of the others; and, so far as I can find, they never
saw the light.
The _Daran_ under whose care the cases described in the first tract were
before they came under Marat’s observation, was Jacques Daran
[1701-1784], a man who greatly distinguished himself whilst in the army
during an epidemic of the Plague at Messina: after travelling all over
Europe he lived at Marseilles, but finally settled in Paris. He was
chiefly celebrated for his bougies for the treatment of diseases of the
urethra: the composition of the bougie he kept a secret, and thus
amassed a very large fortune. He ultimately, however, died at Paris in
very poor circumstances.
The famous _T_***, under whose care the case described on page 17
was, I cannot identify with any degree of certainty.
The “ingenious Mr. _Miller_, Oculist,” mentioned on page 44, was
probably John Miller, an optician, who died at Edinburgh in 1815, having
occupied for forty-eight years a leading position in that city. He was
originally in business at 7 Parliament Close, and afterwards was in
company as Miller and Adie in Nicolson Street.
The original tracts are printed in 4to without any running title; the
top of each page simply having the pagination in square brackets. The
reprints follow the originals exactly as regards orthography,
punctuation, etc. Obvious errors have not been corrected: the pamphlets
are reproduced exactly as Marat wrote them.
Marat’s nationality comes out very strongly in more than one passage,
where, whilst using English words, he has kept entirely to the French
idiom. In the preface to the first tract he apologises for his imperfect
knowledge of the language in which he is writing.
The tract on the Eye is printed with that prodigality of capitals so
common in books of that date: curiously enough the one on Gleets is
entirely free from this lavish use of capitals, and only has them where
absolutely necessary. There is no note (_b_) in the original of the
“Eye” tract: the letters have been followed exactly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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