Aristotle's works:: Containing the Master-piece, Directions for Midwives, and Counsel and Advice to Child-bearing Women with Various Useful Remedies
Aristotle · en
Mr. Fordyce says, he has seen many obstinate gleets, of two, three, or
four years standing, effectually cured by a mercurial inunction, when
almost every other medicine has been tried in vain. Dr. Chapman seems to
be of the same opinion; but says, he has always found the mercury
succeed best in this case when joined with terebinthinate and other
agglutinating medicines. For which reason the Doctor recommends pills
made of calomel and Venice turpentine;[4] and desires that their use may
be accompanied with a decoction of guaiacum or sarsaparilla.
Footnote 4:
Take Venice turpentine, boiled to a sufficient degree of hardness,
half an ounce, calomel half a dram. Let these be mixed and formed into
sixty pills, of which five or six may be taken night and morning. If,
during the use of these pills, the mouth should grow sore, or the
breath become offensive, they must be discontinued till these symptoms
disappear.
The last kind of remedy which we shall mention for the cure of ulcers in
the urinary passage, are the supperating candles or bougies. As these
are prepared various ways, and are generally to be bought ready made, it
is needless to spend time in enumerating the different ingredients of
which they are composed, or teaching the manner of preparing them.
Before a bougie be introduced into the urethra, however, it should be
smeared all over with sweet oil, to prevent it from stimulating too
suddenly. It may be suffered to continue in from one to seven hours,
according as the patient can bear it. Obstinate ulcers are not only
often healed, but tumours or excrescences in the urinary passages taken
away, and an obstruction of urine removed, by means of bougies.
Obstinate gleets may be removed by the use of bougies.
OF THE SWELLED TESTICLE.
The swelled testicle may either proceed from infection lately
contracted, or from the venereal poison lurking in the body; the latter
indeed is not very common, but the former frequently happens both in the
first and second stages of a gonorrhœa; particularly when the running is
unseasonably checked, by cold, hard drinking, strong drastic purges,
violent exercise, the too early use of astringent medicines, or the
like.
In the inflammatory stage, bleeding is necessary, which must be repeated
according to the urgency of the symptoms.[5] The food must be light, and
the drink diluting. High-seasoned food, flesh, wines, and every thing of
a heating nature, are to be avoided. Fomentations are of singular
service. Poultices of bread and milk, softened with fresh butter or oil,
are likewise very proper, and ought constantly to be applied when the
patient is in bed; when he is up the testicles should be kept warm, and
supported by a suspensory, which may easily be contrived in such a
manner as to prevent the weight of the testicle from having any effect.
Footnote 5: