Summary of Mr. Carmichael's views of the venereal cases in which mercury is admissible or is not admissible.

  • Carmichael, Richard, 1779-1849.
Date:
1838
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Summary of Mr. Carmichael's views of the venereal cases in which mercury is admissible or is not admissible. 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.

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    guarded and judicious mode of administering that medicine. In sucli cases, I place much more reliance upon the administra- tion of hydriodate of potash, in conjunction with sarsaparilla. When the presence of nodes indicates the utility of mercury, I restrain myself from its exhibition should rupia also be present, from experience of its injurious effects on the general disease, under tliis form of eruption. And even when extensive ul- ceration of the fauces, engaging the velum, tonsils, and entire pharynx, seems to threaten the life of the patient, I would try every method likely to succeed, before I should have recourse even to mercurial fumigations, for fear of mercurializing the en- tire system, although well aware of the benefit often arising from their use as a local remedy. The local remedies upon which I chiefly rely in checking the progress of this dangerous ulcera- tion, are the application of a strong mineral acid—the white mu- • riate of antimony—a saturated solution of the oxymuriate of mercury in alcohol—or of nitrate of silver in distilled water. While the constitutional remedies, upon which I most depend, are hydriodate of potash, sarsaparilla, and opium in suflScient doses to relieve irritation. I have found mercury, in every stage of the phagedenic ve- nereal disease, to be a most deceitful remedy; for, although symptoms may amend for a brief period under its use, and flat- ter both patient and practitioner that a speedy cure is at hand, yet, almost to a certainty, new symptoms will arise to disappoint those sanguine expectations. If mercury is at all admissible for this form of venereal disease, it is, as I before observed, when the ma- lady is obviously on the decline, and that the eruption has assumed the appearance of scaly tubercles or blotches. This observation equally applies to the pustular form of venereal disease. It is not my wish to enter farther here into the consideration of the different forms of venereal diseases, as the object of this paper is merely to point out, from my own experience, where mercury may be found useful, and where injurious. Gtli. For the true Hunterian chancre, with hardened edge