These general appearances are often accompanied by still more distressing local ones. Though we have only mentioned the chancre as the first symptom, it is sometimes followed by painful ulcers, spreading, unobserved, under the prepuce, and gradually destroying the glans, sometimes the whole penis. A suppurated bubo is often equally destructive, forming numerous extensive sinuses which assume the appearance of cancer. Abscesses form in the perinaeum, producing fistulous ulcers in the bladder, through which the urine issues, and tubercles, styled condylomata., round the anus, almost close the sphincter, or suppurate in fetid, ill conditioned ulcers.

If such and so distressing were the forms of the disease, and they were much more so at its first appearance, we cannot be surprised at the terror which seized the earliest practitioners, who witnessed its devastations without the power of being able to check them. Mercury, its only remedy, was, however, soon discovered, and applied, apparently, at first with a happy boldness by empirics; for guacksalber, the German appellation of this metal, was the root of the opprobrious appellation, a quack; though quackery now in a more extensive sense may be found among those who claim a regular education, as well as those whose medical merit lies in the diploma they have purchased.

Mercury is supposed to be a specific in this disease, in other words to oppose its course by properties peculiarly its own. If we bring this idea to a more rigorous test, it will, we think, amount to this; that mercury, by a chemical combination with the virus, destroys its efficacy. This is a subject which, when treating of mercury (see Argentum vivum), we reserved, and it is one which has occasioned much controversy. As usual, we must state the outline in a summary way. If mercury acts as a specific, its effects would probably be in proportion to its quantity; but in reality they are in proportion to its active state, or rather to its oxygenation. If, too, it acts in this way, its effects should be the same whether it produced any sensible evacuation or not, for if the poison was destroyed we should be indifferent about its discharge; but this is not the case, for it never cures without inducing some evacuation. The difficulties which stand in the way of its acting as an evacuant only are considerable. The poison is said to possess an assimilatory power, so that whatever portion is discharged, should any remain, the disease must recur. To this we can only reply that, probably, mercury promotes the evacuation more rapidly than the assimilatory power produces new supplies; and as the poison, when formed, is conveyed to the skin, from whence it is most readily eliminated by the mercury, we can easily perceive that in no long period the cause must be removed. Yet were this the only effect other eva-cuants should be equally serviceable; and indeed it will be alleged, that those which are determined to the skin, and possess a power of stimulating the extreme vessels, are powerful antisyphilitics. Of this kind it is said are the mezereon, the sarsa, the guaiacum, and probably the volatile alkali; those which operate by the intestines, as the lobelia, and some others, are supposed to be equally useful: but let their respective powers be urged so far as facts will warrant, or as the prejudices of their admirers will carry them, each will be found greatly inferior to mercury, except in a warm climate, where the disease is slight and manageable, often yielding to the power of nature alone. Again: were mercury a specific, its power would be peculiarly striking in the local complaints. It has been said, that the matter of a chancre mixed with a mercurial preparation will not convey the disease; but the experiment has not been so carefully made, or so attentively repeated, as to induce us to rest on it with confidence. But will any one contend, that in venereal sores mercury is not an application more certainly and speedily useful than any other ? The smarting of an irritable chancre is greatly mitigated by the dry calomel in powder; the discharge of a bubo meliorated by mercurial ointment. It will be alleged that any warm stimulating application will be equally beneficial. In gonorrhoea, indeed, it will be so; but gonorrhoea and syphilis are certainly distinct in their causes, their progress, and effects. While, therefore, it is highly probable that mercury acts as a stimulant and a tonic, supporting more actively and steadily the action of the cutaneous vessels than any other medicine, we cannot deny that it has some chemical effect on the poison itself, either diminishing its virulence, or disposing it more readily for evacuation.

This peculiar quality is still in obscurity, but we may be allowed to suggest whether it is not at least connected with the oxygen of its preparations. We have occasionally indulged ourselves in conjectures, but have not suffered them to detain us long. We shall now, therefore, shortly remark, that mercurial preparations are, as already observed, active in proportion to the oxygen which they contain; that other substances containing a proportion of oxygen are useful in at least arresting the progress of the poison; that the sallow complexion, the inert, inirritable state of the sores, as well as the appearance of the matter discharged, show that there is a great deficiency of oxygen in the system." If then the mineral acids are only partially effectual in removing syphilis, may we not contend that, besides the oxygen, the steady diaphoretic effect of the mercury is required ? When the sarsa and mezereon fail, may it not be alleged that the oxygen is wanting ? They do not, indeed, fail in warm climates, where, though the disease is milder, the oxygen is apparently more copiously separated in the ordinary functions.

To the numerous and crowded list of remedies for this disease, M. Acharius of Stockholm has lately added tar-water. Alone, it is said to cure, or to be a powerful auxiliary to mercury or the nitric acid. We need not attempt to connect this opinion with our former observations, till experience has more fully ap-preciated the value of the proposal.