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Tho there is now no absolute necessity for my
appearing in the matter at all, yet I cannot but choose to
write you in regard to a case, upon which you will be
consulted about this time; I mean that of Mr Spalding,
in which I have been concerned from the beginning, tho'
I declined putting my name to Mr Coplands relation of it,
as it was drawn up in my absence, and no more than
merely read over by me. -- The particulars of it are
simple and obvious. -- There was never the smallest appear¬
ance of a Gonorrhea. - A Chancre appeared eight or ten
days after infection. -- In six or eight weeks thereafter
the buboes were first perceived. They were {illeg} small,
without any marks of inflammation, and had continued
several days in the same indolent state. ↑At this time I first saw him↑. As it was {illeg} -
{illeg} to be hoped that the ↑buboes↑ might be discussed, and as I
judged it advisable for Mr S. to go through mercurial
course, I advised him to enter upon it immediately;
hoping that by introducing the mercury into the habit
in a moderate degree, & by rubbing a part of the oint¬
ment into the tumors themselves, the cure might be made
be made as short as possible. - I gave positive written
directions (which I have desired that Mr S. to shew to you when
he gets to town) in regard to the strength & quantity of

Accordingly we began our course, and were kept but
a very short time in suspense, for, in four or five days, and
after two or three frictions, which had just come sensibly to
affect his mouth, it appeared that the buboes were advancing
to suppuration. - In a very short time they suppurated in
the most kindly manner, the quantity of matter being suffici¬
ently large, and its colour & consistence good. There were
now no marks of the little mercury he had taken remaining
in his constitution, the use of it having been intirely dropt
as soon as the advancement of the buboes was observed.

Hitherto all went on very well; the patient flattering
himself with ↑the hopes of↑ a speedy cure, and the Surgeon giving assurances
of the same. -- Though the matter discharged from the buboes
was such as I have mentioned, yet, with a view, I suppose, to
promote a more speedy digestion, Mr Copland soon began

But, instead of keeping to the directions which
I had given, Mercury was now used in the most liberal
manner. - They have since owned to me that, besides the
mercurial dressings to the buboes, a large quantity of
the strongest mercurial ointment was, for four nights suc¬
cessively, (it is probable the number was greater) rubbed into
rubbed into the thighs, legs, and upon the glans penis. =- Nay
more, without my having the least suspicion of it, Mercurial
Pills were likewise given internally. - The immediate con¬
sequence was a profuse salivation, with much sickness, &
fever, and with as sore and seemingly an ulcerated mouth
as you can well conceive to be produced by Mercury. -- I
need not say that we now desisted from the use of mercurial
remedies. -- From that time the ulcers, though the have contrac¬
ted much at their orifices, have shewn no disposition to heal.
On the contrary one of them now admits more than an inch of
a probe to be introduced below the teguments, where I have no

Now Dear Sir, I think you will not blame me for having given you
this information, though in a sort of a clandestine manner, for I have said no
thing here of my being to write you, & therefore you will be so good as not to mention
my having done so -- I write you at all times with the same freedom that I would have
done to my own father, & I should wish that you would be as free as he would have
been in telling me where I am wrong. -- In the present instance I should wish
much to know whether you think I was right at first in dreading troublesome
sores from the use of Mercury, - and whether or no the difficulties in this case
are to be attributed to that cause? --

With regard to Miss McMurdo I can only add now to what I writ last
that the fever still keeps up, -- & that we find she has very little the use of
her limbs -- Upon the whole she seems to be gaining no ground. ----

To
Doctor Cullen
Physician in
Edinburgh

Gilchrist of Dumfries
May 1775