Volume 1

Remarks on some of the opinions of the late Mr. John Hunter respecting the venereal disease; in a letter to Jeseph Adams / [Henry Clutterbuck].

  • Clutterbuck, Henry, 1767-1856
Date:
1799
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on some of the opinions of the late Mr. John Hunter respecting the venereal disease; in a letter to Jeseph Adams / [Henry Clutterbuck]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    9/74 (page 7)
    The employment of the term disposition, by Mr. Hunter, has given rise to much contro¬ versy, between the friends and opponents of 3ns system. Not having liimself defined it, it is hot surprising that others should have dis¬ agreed in their use of it. A striking instance is hence afforded, in addition to those which you have pointed out in your Essay *, of the dis¬ advantage' of employing a language in medi¬ cine, without a sufficiently precise and dis¬ criminate meaning. You endeavour to shew the distinction between action, susceptibility, and disposition, and to justify Mr. Hunter in the use of the latter term, as expressive of the state subsequent to contamination, but pre¬ vious to any evident change in the appearance or functions of the part.—If, indeed, the word were new and unappropriated, there could be no objection to its employment for the pre¬ sent purpose. But the term disposition has been generally used in a passive sense, and, in common medical language, has been emplo57ed synonimously with susceptibility or nearly sb : the latter, however, bears a very different significa¬ tion to that which the former is meant to con^ vey on the present occasion. It seems pretty * Essay on Morbid Poisons. Chap. I. generally