Robert James Culverwell

“ We are subject to an infinitude of laws: we are perpetually changing, and these changes may fairly be stated as chymical affinities: it is owing to such, that the absorption of fluids, and the deposition of substances, which exist more or less in all derangements of health, ensue—to such, that we resist death, and to such that we become its prey. Gravel is a disease not so productive of fear or suffering, so long as it escapes when formed; but there are so many circumstances that may give rise to the formation of stone, that sandy urine should always command notice and treatment. ”

“ Of course, such a condition must depend upon a seriously-deranged constitution: hence there is present a perpetual thirst, an entire perversion of the perspiratory function, and a morbid condition of many of the phenomena of life. Where this disease springs up in early years, it becomes a habit proper to existence; and although it may not seriously disturb the economy of the being so as to lessen the duration of one’s stay here, yet it furnishes a source of much solicitude, by depriving us of rest, and shutting us out from society. ”

“ Cold and callous must be the man who does not prize the meek and gentle spirit of a confiding woman. Her lips may not be sculptured in the line of perfect beauty, her eye may not roll in dazzling splendor, but if the native smile be ever ready to welcome, and the glance fraught with clinging devotion, or shrinking sensibility, she must be prized far above gold or rubies. ”

“ As diabetes is mostly a sequence of some previous disturbance of the urinary system, it the more behooves the afflicted to heed the first noticial summons of attack: a handful of water will sometimes quench a mouldering ember that, suffered to rise into a flame, an engineful can not extinguish. I may add, there is no cause so destructive to virility as these drainages from the system through the urethra—an additional reason why they should be attended to upon their first appearance. ”

“ Lastly, with respect to intemperance, the bloated appearance, the tremulous state of the muscular powers, the fetid breath, and the sunken eye, sufficiently identify the cause, to arrest all doubts on the subject. Where intemperance exists in married life, it is the bane of all comfort and enjoyment; and heaven help the unhappy partner of such a companion. There is but one consolation, that every indulgence of this insane practice tends to sap and break up the powers of the constitution, and hastens the close of such a union. ”

“ Thus a gleet is established. The patient finding little or no inconvenience from the slight oozing, which, as he observes, is sometimes better and occasionally worse, according to his mode of living, determines to let nature achieve her own cure, and for months he drags with him a distemper that, despite all his philosophy, he can not reflect on without an humiliating diminution of self-approval. ”

“ A patient, laboring under fever or inflammation of any important organ, will scarcely rid himself of a wineglassful of blood-colored urine in the twenty-four hours; and there are many forms of ailments, where the function of separating the urine from the blood, or even the function of supplying the kidneys with that vital fluid, are suspended, partially or entirely. Few of us have escaped attacks of this kind; they are sure to follow long-pursued habits of dissipation, or even occasional displays of it; and they are often the result of accidents over which we have but little control. ”

“ In France, legitimacy is allowed to children born on the 299th day of pregnancy.
Labor is distinguished by a softening of the soft parts of the female organs of generation, an abundant secretion [148] of mucus, a relaxation of the mouth of the womb, and a forcible contraction of its body. The expulsion of the child is effected by pains of a straining nature. After the birth of the child, the womb contracts to its normal or unimpregnated size, giving forth a discharge, called the lochia, that lasts for several days, and the breasts immediately furnish the secretion of milk. ”

“ A notion once prevailed, that women who did not menstruate could not conceive; it has since been disproved, except in those instances where menstruation never occurred: a single monthly discharge indicates an aptitude for conception. It is observed that barren women have very small breasts. Women who are very fat are often barren, for their corpulence either exists as a mark of weakness of the system, or it depends upon a want of activity in the ovaria: thus spayed or castrated animals generally become fat. The same remarks apply to the male kind, who are outrageously corpulent. ”

“ The principles, therefore, which I advocate in the treatment [106] of syphilis, are precisely those I depend upon in gonorrhœa, or, to familiarize the analogy, in a fit of indigestion, or an attack of local or general inflammation. Where the health is disturbed, the first step is to attempt restoration. The fact is almost too familiar to every one to need repetition, that, as is the condition of the health, so is the resistance it is capable of opposing to disease. The next proceeding is, to attempt the subdual of the prevailing symptoms. ”

“ There is seldom much advance of a swelling without pain, which latter may be said to attract the patient’s attention to the part, when a tumor, possibly the size only of a horse-bean, is discovered. If the swelling be venereal, it rapidly increases in size. It is at first moveable, but soon feels as though firmly fixed. There is next experienced inconvenience in walking. If the disease proceed to suppuration, a continued throbbing is felt in the part, which also swells, assumes a diffused redness, and at last an evident sense of fluctuation is perceived. ”

“ It is rarely that piles attack people in the [194] lower class of life, and those who have to work hard for their livelihood and are much in the open air, which accounts for the prevalence of this disease in the upper ranks of society. The treatment of piles is very simple, if proceeded with at the commencement of the complaint, the grand object being to prevent constipation. An excellent adjunct to the cure of incipient piles, is the warm bath. Its tendency to overcome local congestions, and thereby equalize the circulation of the blood, is well known. ”

“ A female may be impotent, and not sterile; and sterile, but not impotent. Impotence can only exist in the female, when there is an impervious vagina; but even this condition does not necessarily infer sterility, many cases being recorded, where the semen, by some means or another, through an aperture that would not admit a fine probe, has found entrance to the vagina and occasioned impregnation.
Impotence may arise from a malformed pelvis, the absence of a vagina, adhesion of its labia, unruptured hymen, or one of such strength as to resist intromission. ”

“ Now, as the consequences of all criminalities continue to ensue so long as the provocative be kept up, it is very evident that, as a first step toward the restoration of order and health, the cause must be removed or withheld. The mere will or resolution is seldom sufficient: virtue, like vice, has its allurements, and those belonging to the former must be called into requisition as antagonists to the snares of the latter. ”

“ The reader, if he be an afflicted one, will eagerly turn to the page wherein the treatment of this formidable and distressing malady is considered; and great will be his satisfaction and delight, on finding it remediable by such simple means, and entirely within his own control; more especially if he direct his attention to the disease in its earlier stages.
He must by no means, however, be too sanguine, from these remarks, or indulge in the idea that as stricture is remediable, it is unimportant when the cure be attempted; the longer the delay, the greater will be the cost to the patient ”

“ There are many remarkable eccentricities that embitter married life. A union may exist between two parties who are wholly inapt for mutual enjoyment. The sensations belonging to the sexual act are involuntary, and are provoked independently of the will: hence, in connexion without consent, or under feelings of great repugnance, the orgasm is sometimes aroused; and yet, where the greatest affection and desire prevail, the male oftentimes unseasonably concluding before the female, is a most tantalizing source of disappointment. ”

“ A word or two on the opposite extreme, continence. The reader will observe, in another page, the remark that every part, be it flesh, bone, or nerve, has its use. The reproductive organs have theirs; but it is not only for the propagation of the species—they afford an outlet for accumulated secretion—they aid in resolving the animal passions—they are the secret incentive to sexual love, and the bond of union between the sexes. They give an appetite that, like hunger, must be appeased, or nature revolts; and the harmony of society falls before the ungovernable fury of maniacal craving. ”

“ In females of feeble or consumptive health, and others of delicate constitutions generally, the aperture of the hymen may become dilated from natural causes—from too profuse a flow of the menstrual flux, from local debility of the part itself, such as exist in the disease known by the name of the whites; and it is sometimes to be traced to the habit of personal and solitary excitement, as will be presently alluded to. The membrane is occasionally so dense and hard as to resist sexual cohabitation; and only upon dividing it by the scalpel, can intercourse be sustained. ”

“ A few moments of enduring silence would often prevent years of discord and unhappiness; but the keen retort and waspish argument too often break the chain of affection, link by link, and leave the heart with no tie to hold it but a cold and frigid duty. ”

“ Travelling, to those who can afford the expense or the time, is one of the best means of conquering this baneful habit. The numerous objects thereby presented to the eye of the invalid in the manners, government, and productions of art and nature, of the countries he visits, are an incessant source of pleasing and useful excitement, and can not fail, especially if the traveller be accompanied by an intelligent and moral friend, to weaken and eradicate the bad impressions of the past. ”

“ We know that when a disease exists for a long while, and is one not positively destructive to life, a habit of action is acquired that renders its continuation in that state as natural as its healthy condition. This is the state of the secretive vessels in gleet, arising from gonorrhœa; and hence the discharge is poured forth, instead of the secretion natural to the urethral passage in its healthy order. Secondly, such may have been the severity of a clap, that ulceration of some portion of the urethra may have taken place. ”

“ Piles constitute a disease that may be very slow or very rapid in its progress. The patient complains of an occasional itching or soreness at the rectum after an evacuation, more particularly if subject to constipation, or if he be an irregular liver: when, after a while, he will be surprised on discovering, subsequent to some straining effort, a knot of elastic but irregularly formed tumors, of a size varying from a hazel-nut to a horse-bean, springing out apparently from the rectum, that in a few days, if they continue, will become sore, and probably be attended with a discharge of blood. ”

“ I have stated that the urine is subject to a multitude of changes, that the human frame is constituted to exist under a variety of circumstances, and that occurrences are daily happening, wherein its integrity is put to the test. Excesses, termed sensual, and others, which in themselves might destroy life, are counterbalanced by what may be styled the safety-valves of the system. A violent fit of purging, perspiration, or micturition, is often the means of warding off an otherwise fatal blow. ”