On the treatment of secondary syphilis / by J.L. Milton.

  • Milton, J. L. (John Laws), 1820-1898.
Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the treatment of secondary syphilis / by J.L. Milton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    14/16 (page 14)
    * decoction does not effect quite this, I never hesitate to prescribe an aperient pill every two or three nights. The decoction should always he taken warm; and when the patient can remain in bed during the early part of the day, and confine himself to the house in the evening, especially during cold and wet weather, I think he undoubtedly recovers more quickly and thoroughly. After the course of the decoction has been gone through, dilute nitro- or nitro-hydrochloric acid, or dilute phosphoric acid, in some bitter tincture or infusion, should be given if the patient suffers from loss of appetite and debility. I suppose all belief in the anti- venereal properties of such medicines has long faded away, even if it were ever entertained by sober-minded persons since the days of Helenus Scott; but I think there can be no doubt that they materially improve the health ; and unless the patient is too tired of medicine to take anything more,—which is one of the most probable things in the world,—they may be prescribed with the most confident prospect of doing good. What I have now to add will perhaps awaken more censure and opposition to the treatment than anything else, and that is, that the patient must go through another course of the same kind, but a very short one, at the end of three months, and again at the end of six mlonths after that. This may appear intolerable to some per- sons ; if so, I am sorry for it, but the truth must be stated. The nature of the disease is to return, and the only safe plan is to anticipate the relapse. I do not, however, generally find it requisite to order more than a very short course; three or four weeks of the medicine, raising the dose much more rapidly than at first, half-a- dozen to a dozen baths taken every night, and a four or five days’ use of the purgatives, suffice, in most cases, to do all that is re- quisite. But all directions as to remedies, external and internal, the modes and times of using them, are liable to be defeated, unless the patient will observe a strictly regulated diet, and conform to the dictates of prudence. The diet should be good, without being heating or over high. I do not know whether it is necessary to define what this really means; but as it may be thought rather vague, it will perhaps be better to say, that the food should include but a very moderate amount of meat, and that sucli things as pork, goose, strong heating soups like mulligatawney, curry, shell-fish to any great extent, too much salmon, etc., should be excluded. Plenty of good milk, good bread, and pudding of tapioca, rice, and Chap- man’s flour, and mutton broth, are most desirable ingredients. Beer of all kinds, spirits, unless it be occasionally a small quantity of pure Hollands, and all strong brandied wines, should be banished at once. Sound, thin, red wine, such as good claret, burgundy, Carlowitz, and Australian red hermitage, is, I think, by far the most suitable. By conforming to the dictates of prudence, I mean that the patient should sedulously abstain from all unnecessary exposure to cold and rain, from late hours, and excesses of every kind.