10 - Syphilis and Sociability: The Impolite Bodies of Two Gentlemen, James Boswell (1740–1795) and Sylas Neville (1741–1840)

Summary

For those unfortunate enough to contract venereal disease in 1725, help was immediately at hand, for the The Secret Patient's Diary was available to all upon application: ‘Given Gratis, Up One Pair of Stairs at the Sign of that Celebrated Anodyne Necklace’, and for those ‘Persons who may live some Distance from London … a Servant is employed on Purpose to Carry any of these Books or Remedies Privately to whoever writes for them’. Although the ‘diary’ is an extended piece of advertising for a patented cure for ‘the secret disease’, it also gives a detailed account of what the sufferer might expect as the infection took hold. For the first three days the ‘Venomous Matter … being of a violent sharp corrosive Nature, lies … Fretting and Fermenting within the Pores and Glands of the Part that has re[c]eived it’. On the fourth and fifth days heat and itching make themselves felt, and on the sixth the dripping of foul matter accompanies increasing tenderness and inflammation. By day nine the discharge will have become discoloured, the passing of urine will be painful, the dripping will have increased and, as the discharge crusts, a blockage will occur and cause the urine to divide into a double stream, causing an almighty mess. At this stage, the patient should be able to identify the seriousness of the infection. The ‘thicker and whiter the dripping is, and the sooner the distemper shows itself’ the better it is for the patient, and the infection can be easily and effectively treated by the purchase of a ‘proper medicinal liquor to wash, cleanse, and draw any infection’, in which the affected part must soak. However, ‘the yellower and greener, & the thinner the matter is that comes away’, the worse the infection; the unfortunate sufferers must read on past the treatment of the first degree of the disease to discover what further discomfort awaits them. By day 12 the foreskin will be ‘raw, blistery and sore’ and the discharge so increased ‘as to give the distemper the name of a GONORRHEA ‘, soon to be accompanied by ‘cold shiverings, sick qualms of the stomach, … Fainting, heats in the palms of the hands, pains in the limbs, a weakness, wearyness, and heavyness about the body’, marking the second degree of infection.