646 PRACTICE OF PHYSIC. 



recent, and have not yet formed any considerable ulcer, may 

 often be healed by the common mercurial ointment ; but the 

 most powerful means of healing them has appeared to me to 

 be the application of red precipitate in a dry powder. 



MDCCLXXXII. When, in consequence of chancres or 

 of the other circumstances above mentioned, by which it may 

 happen the venereal poison has been communicated to the 

 blood, it produces many different symptoms in different parts 

 of the body, not necessary to be enumerated and described 

 here, that having been already done by many authors with 

 great accuracy. 



MDCCLXXXIII. Whenever Any of those symptoms do 

 in any degree appear, or as soon as it is known that the circum- 

 stances which give occasion to the communication of the vene- 

 real poison have taken place, I hold the internal use of mercury 

 to be immediately necessary ; and I am well persuaded, that 

 mercury employed without delay, and in sufficient quantity, will 

 pretty certainly prevent the symptoms which would otherwise 

 have goon appeared, or will remove those that may have already 

 discovered themselves. In both cases, it will secure the person 

 from any future consequences of syphilis from that infection. 



MDCCLXXXIV. This advice for the early and full use 

 of mercury, I take to be the most important that can be given 

 with respect to the venereal disease ; and although I must ad- 

 mit that the virulence of the poison may be greater in one case 

 than in another, and even that one constitution may be more 

 favourable than another to the violence of the disease, yet I am 

 thoroughly convinced that most of the instances ^which have 

 occurred of the violence and obstinacy of syphilis, have been 

 owing very entirely to the neglect of the early application of 

 mercury. 



MDCCLXXXV. Whatever other remedies of syphilis may 

 be known, or may hereafter be found out, I cannot pretend to 

 determine ; but I am well persuaded that in most cases, mer- 

 cury properly employed will prove a very certain and effectual 

 remedy. With respect to others that have been proposed, I 

 shall offer this remark only, that I have found the decoction of 

 the mezereon contribute to the healing of ulcers which seemed 

 to have resisted the power of mercury. 





