Poker 1880
In his 1892 autobiography Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi, gambler-bunco artist George Devol described a brush he had with a celebrity in 1874. Devol was working in the Gold Room saloon in Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory, at the time. One day a strangely familiar gent, with blue-tinted spectacles and his hat pulled low on his forehead, sauntered up to a gaming table and placed a $50 bet, which he promptly lost. The fellow placed the same bet again and this time won. When the dealer handed over only $25, the stranger protested and was told, ‘the house limit’s 25.’ ‘But you took 50 when I lost,’ said the man. ‘Fifty goes when you lose,’ replied the dealer. Without warning, the furious player whacked the dealer and his partner over the head with his walking stick, toppled the table and began stuffing his pockets with the contents of the till. As he swung around to cover the room with two six-shooters, his hat fell off, revealing a mane of long, sandy hair and the familiar countenance of James Butler ‘Wild Bill’ Hickok.
Treatment of Venereal Disease during the Civil War. During the Civil War, as in all wars, venereal disease was a major problem since it disabled the soldier and decreased his effectiveness to fight or be moved from battle to battle. A fireplace poker, (also known as a fire iron) is a short, rigid rod made of fireproof material used to adjust coal and wood fuel burning in a fireplace, and can be used to stir up a fire. A fireplace poker is usually metallic and has a point at one end for pushing burning materials (or a hook for pulling/raking, or a combination) and a handle.
Whether or not we believe the old gambler’s tale (a brush with the ‘Prince of Pistoleers’ would have sold copies in 1892, especially since Hickok was no longer around to refute it), the story illustrates what a player was often up against when he tangled with the king of all frontier gambling games; faro. Born in France, the game came to America in the 1700s. Its name often spelled ‘pharo’ or ‘pharaoh,’ derived from period French playing cards, whose backs sometimes bore the likeness of an Egyptian ruler. Some early faro cards and layouts also displayed a portrait of a Bengal tiger, inspiring such terms as ‘bucking the tiger’ or ‘twisting the tiger’s tail’ to describe playing the game. In later years, a framed tiger portrait hanging outside a gaming house announced the presence of a faro game within.
Faro was possibly the simplest gambling game ever devised. Players bet against the house, placing bets upon a green cloth-covered layout with painted images of 13 cards, ace through king. Spades were usually depicted, but suits didn’t matter; only face value counted. The dealer dealt two cards per turn from a standard deck of 52, and the object was for players to predict which cards would appear. The first card of each turn lost for the player, but won for the bank. The second card won for the player. Chips, or ‘checks’ (as serious players called them), placed upon a card’s image bet that card to win for the player. Players could bet a card to lose by placing a hexagonal token called a copper (pennies were used in earlier days) atop the checks. If a pair turned up, the house took half of any bet on that card, these’splits’ representing an honest bank’s only real advantage. Players could back any number of cards and, if their cards did not appear, could change bets between turns. A lookout often supervised the game to prevent cheating, and would pay and collect all bets.
Originally, players could only back single cards, or groups of cards called figures, pots and squares. In later years, ‘heeling’ and’stringing along’ permitted Byzantine wagers wherein a single bet could cover several cards, betting them to win, lose, or any combination. Players could also wager that the face value of either card turned up would be odd, even, or the higher of the turn. Winning bets paid even money, except on the last turn, when players could ‘call the turn’ by guessing the order of the final three cards and winners were paid 4-to-1.
Unique to faro was the casekeeper, an abacuslike frame with miniature cards matching those on the layout. From each card ran a spindle with four button-shaped disks, and the dealer’s assistant, also called the casekeeper, moved these buttons to record the cards dealt. Some houses even provided printed cards, called tabs, so players could keep a similar tally. In early faro, the dealer dealt from his hand, and sleight-of-hand cheating was commonplace. In 1822, Virginia gambler Robert Bailey invented a brass dealing box with a hole in the top, which allowed cards to be slid out one by one. Bailey claimed this device prevented any shenanigans by dealers, but because it concealed the deck, many houses were skeptical and barred it from their premises. In 1825, an Ohio watchmaker named Graves perfected an open-top, spring-fed box that held the deck face up to eliminate any suspicion of cheating. This box, usually made of German silver, was an instant success and would remain the standard throughout faro’s long reign. Since the top card was exposed in these boxes, it was a ‘dead’ card and could not be bet upon. The top card became known as the’soda card,’ and the last card, also dead, was called ‘hock’.
30 Casino Gaming Poker Chip Lot Las Vegas $1 New & Used Chipco Paulson Clay room. Las Vegas Casino 14g Poker Chip Set in. Four Card Poker is played with a 52 card deck. There are three circles in front of each player marked: Aces Up, Ante and 1x to 3x Ante. The play begins with the player making independent wagers on either the Aces Up or Ante portion of the game or both by placing the bet in the corresponding circle.
Although poker is better known today, it was fairly obscure until the late 1850’s and didn’t really catch on until the 1870s. Faro was the premier game; high-rolling gamblers liked the easy odds, and others enjoyed the quick action and the thrill of staking it all on the turn of a single card. One Colorado Gold Rush observer noted that faro was played by everyone ‘from the bonanza kings in their private clubs to the little bootblacks who buck the tiger in a shack on Carbonate Hill.’
An 1882 study considered faro to be the most popular form of gambling, surpassing all others forms combined in terms of money wagered each year. It was also widespread in the German states during the 19th century, where it was known as Pharao or Pharo.
Although it provided a colorful spectacle for both player and spectator, faro was a stately game, even amid the pandemonium of the typical gambling house. An Easterner observed in 1872 that ‘there is rarely a word spoken during the progress of a deal, for faro is the most quiet, and in that respect, the most gentlemanly of all games.’ But this same writer also warned that ‘faro honestly played is a game of pure chance, and sometimes favors the unfortunate who meddles with it.’ Players liked the seemingly favorable odds; bankers often liked the many opportunities for cheating. Chicanery was employed by players as well as dealers, but to be caught invited gunplay. Cheating was so prevalent in the States, however, that American editions of Hoyle’s rules began carrying disclaimers that honest faro could no longer be found. R.F. Foster, an early Hoyle editor, explained that ‘to justify this expenditure [of opening a faro bank], he [the dealer] must have some permanent advantage.’ He added that if no such advantage was inherent in the game, players were likely being cheated.
Mere months after Graves’ invention, crooked dealing boxes flooded the market, designed to allow dealers to predict and/or manipulate the order of cards dealt. These ‘gaffed’ boxes sold under such exotic names as ‘tongue-tell,’ ‘horse box,’ and ‘needle squeeze.’ Honest, or’square,’ boxes sold for around $30, while gaffed boxes went for up to $200. Graves cashed in on this development, designing many of these contraptions himself.
Close behind these boxes came an array of specially designed cards. ‘Sanded’ cards, roughened on one side, would cling together, and were used with ‘two-card’ boxes that allowed the dealer to slide out more than one card at a time. ‘Strippers’ were narrower on one end, or had curved sides, so a dealer could manipulate them during the shuffle to ‘put up’ splits. Since splits occurred naturally only about three times in two deals, there was an obvious house advantage in increasing the number dealt. A faro dealer’s salary often reached $100 to $200 per week, plus a percentage of the house take. Foster charged that these genets were not paid so amply’simply for pulling cards out of a box,’ and challenged bankers, as a good-faith gesture, to let him ‘put a typewriter girl in the dealer’s place.’ He apparently had no takers. Crooked games were called brace games, defined by Indiana gambler Mason Long as those ‘in which a man has no chance of winning unless the dealer breaks his finger, and that he never does.’ Brace houses sprang up nationwide, where ‘cappers’ posed as players and’steerers’ lured in unwary ‘gulls.’ Such organized and widespread cheating led reformed gambler Jonathan Green to write in 1853, ‘A man would act more rationally and correctly to burn his money than to bet it on faro.’
The worst of the gambling hells were the ‘wolf traps’-pure skinning dens where anyone with a $20 stake could buy a stack of checks and open a’snap,’ with the house providing the layout for 10 percent of the bank’s take. No casekeepers or lookouts were employed, and cheating ran rampant. Players often retaliated by ‘goosing’ or’snaking’ the dealer’s kit and tampering with his cards, or by ‘bonneting’ the dealer-throwing a blanket over his head and making off with his bank. The management didn’t care who skinned whom, but cashed checks for anybody with no questions asked. In tamer houses, players cheated in a more discreet fashion. Some used devices such as the horsehair copper-simply a copper with a strand of horsehair attached so it could be secretly yanked from a winning card.
Inveterate gambler Bat Masterson once so engrossed a dealer in a tale of his glory days that the fellow absent-mindedly shoved cards from a completed game back into a dealing box ‘without even the suspicion of a shuffle.’ The cagey Bat caught the error, and by checking his tab from the pervious game won turn after turn, losing only an occasional small bet ‘for decency’s sake.’ Toward the end, with Bat anxiously prepared to ‘earthquake’ the last turn, the dealer suddenly smelled a rat and turned over his dealing box, ending the game.
Redoubtable gunman Ben Thompson destroyed a Leadville, Colo., game after losing $3,000 in 1879, when the mining town boasted more than 100 gambling dens (most of them along State Street, nicknamed ‘Tiger Alley’ for its abundance of faro banks). On a later occasion in an Austin, Texas, saloon, Thompson idly watched a dealer named Lorraine clean players through several turns; then, without warning, Thompson cleared leather and began shooting stacks of checks off the layout. After also plugging the dealing box and the lamps above the table, Thompson explained to those few onlookers who remained, ‘I don’t think that set of tools is altogether honest, and I would like to help Mr. Lorraine buy another.’ Fueled by bug juice, the fiery shootist then bulldozed a neighboring saloon, taking out a keno goose, a few more lamps and several streetlights in his wake. The following morning, a sober and contrite Thompson reported to the mayor’s office and paid all damages. Such antics apparently did not faze Austin’s voting public, for Thompson was elected city marshal in 1880.Luke Short, one of the sporting fraternity equally skilled with a dealing box or a six-shooter, could not tolerate cheats. At a faro game in a Leadville saloon in 1879, a local hard case named Brown shifted one of Luke’s bets on the layout. When Brown rudely ignored his polite request to desist, Luke made his next request by way of a lead slug fired point-blank through the cheater’s cheek. Brown meddled no further with the dapper little gambler’s game.
In February 1881, an argument over a faro game in Tombstone, Arizona Territory, led to fatal gunplay between Short and gambler Charlie Storms, a clash witnessed by Bat Masterson. Masterson entered the Oriental Saloon and found the two, both friends of his, about to do battle. Bat persuaded the drunken Storms to go home and sleep it off, personally escorting him there. He had scarcely returned to the Oriental when Storms suddenly reappeared and yanked Short off the sidewalk. Before Masterson could intervene again, both men drew their guns. Short was quicker, and Storms fell dead with bullets through his neck and heart. Another witness, George Parsons, noted in his journal that after Storms’ body was carried to his room, ‘ the Faro games went right on as though nothing had happened.’
In 1875, a faro dealer named Tom McKey bucked the suckers at Babbitt’s House in Denver, working alternatively as dealer and lookout. He moved on in the summer of ’76 to Cheyenne, where he ran a bank in Ford’s Place. Presumably, no one who bet at the nimble-fingered McKey’s layout knew he was actually a Georgia-born dentist named John Henry ‘Doc’ Holliday. Doc found gambling more lucrative and satisfying than yanking molars, and it was a trade he plied across the West throughout his brief life. In 1880, Doc ran a bank at the Alhambra Saloon in Tombstone, a venture shared with perhaps the West’s best-known faro dealer, Wyatt Earp.
During his sojourn in Tombstone, Earp owned gambling interests in several saloons, sharing the green cloth with his brothers and a cadre of Earp allies, most notably Holliday, Luke Short and Bat Masterson. He not only dealt but also, like a true aficionado, avidly bucked the bank. After a falling-out with proprietor Milt Joyce, Earp gave up his one-quarter interest in the Oriental Saloon’s faro concession, only to learn that a new bank operating there was owned by his hated enemy, Cochise County Sheriff John Behan. Learning that Behan’s total capital was $5,000, Wyatt entered a game with the sheriff himself in the lookout seat, playing until his pile topped $6,000. When Wyatt announced he was cashing in, Behan protested, lamely offering to make good any further winnings. Earp tersely responded: ‘I’ll take mine in cash. Your credit with me doesn’t cover a white chip.’ Wyatt collected his winnings, and Behan’s bank folded for good. After the O.K. Corral fracas and its bloody aftermath, Wyatt Earp left for friendlier and healthier regions. He landed in Gunnison, Colo., and found work running the far games in Charley Biebel’s saloon, where, according to a local police officer named Riley, ‘he always wore two guns, high up under his arms.’ Wyatt apparently had little need of the guns, but maintained order with his reputation and the characteristic Earp cool.
Unlike many professions, gambling in the 19th century was not strictly a male domain. Many women, tired of Victorian society’s strict codes and prescribed roles, sought adventure in the gaming houses. Saloonkeepers quickly discovered that a pretty dealer boosted business, and many a faro bank featured a lady behind the dealing box.
Poker Alice, despite the nickname, was a skilled faro dealer. Born in England in 1851, she turned cards in Colorado boom towns like Leadville and Creede, as well as in Tombstone, and lived to be nearly 80. In contrast, Deadwood’s Kitty LeRoy, aptly nicknamed Kitty the Schemer, died at age 28, shot by her fifth husband. Doc Holliday reportedly once lost $3,000 to Lottie Deno, a redheaded Southern belle who dealt faro in Fort Griffin, Texas. Deno was nearly 90 when she died, the wife of a bank vice president.
Perhaps the best-known woman gambler was Frenchwoman Eleanor Dumont, nicknamed Madame Mustache for her downy upper lip. She appeared in California during the gold rush, opening a posh gambling house in Nevada City to the dismay of city fathers (who thought a woman gambler scandalous) and the delight of the rough-and-tumble miners (who felt it a privilege to have a pretty lady lighten their pokes). Her Vingt-et-Un (Twenty-One) gambling house had carpets and crystal chandeliers and served free champagne; patrons were required to clean up their boots (and their language) if they wished to enter and play at the madame’s tables.
When the Nevada city boom went bust, Madame Mustache followed the gold and silver, and for 25 years she dealt games in camps throughout the West, adding to her resume, as fortunes declined, a much older profession than gambling. Madame Mustache ended her days in Bodie, Calif, where she eked out a meager existence turning tricks as well as cards. One September night in 1879, a pair of sharpers broke the madame’s faro bank, and the next morning she was found dead in her lonely cabin, a poison bottle in her hand.
Throughout the latter 1800s, faro dominated Western gambling. From $10 snaps to rich banks in the gaudy houses of Denver and San Francisco, the tiger’s roar was loud. In 1885, 200 persons worked in Denver’s gambling houses, which boasted such colorful names as the Bucket of Blood, the Morgue, the Tivoli and the Chicken Coop. Of all the banks in Denver, only six were known to be square. So popular was faro there that the county sheriff once pawned his revolver for $20 to buck a game at the Denver House. When mudslingers charged that 1888 senatorial candidate Edward O. Woolcott had lost $22,000 at faro, he replied it was his own business if he did, adding ‘Besides, I had just won the money the previous day at the races.’ Colorado loved a sporting man; Woolcott won the election.
Despite support from sheriff’s and senators, however, faro’s golden age was nearing its end. As early as 1872, an Eastern chronicler had observed that ‘no vice has blighted so many lives, has illustrated so many epics of anguish, or has cost the productive industry so many millions of money, as faro gambling.’ As civilization’s roots spread, this sentiment gradually took hold nationwide, and by the 1890s, even confirmed gambler George Devol admitted, ‘If I had never seen a faro bank, I would be a wealthy man today.’
By 1900, one of gambling’s last bastions, Arizona Territory, still contained nearly 1,000 gaming establishments, but public pressure ultimately won out. A headline in the March 31, 1907, Prescott Journal-Miner read, ‘The Tiger is Dying!’ and by midnight, Arizona’s last turn had been called. As state after state followed suit, the tiger became an endangered species whose last stand was, predictably, in Las Vegas, Nev. With legitimized, regulated gambling in place, a game with faro’s checkered past was looked at askance. More important, casino operators learned what the old-time sharpers had known for centuries: Honest faro made no money for the house. Joe W. Brown’s Horseshoe Casino ran possibly the last bank in existence in 1955.
All that’s left of faro today is the colorful jargon it contributed to American speech. An example that perhaps best illustrates the Western gambler’s fascination with faro is attributed to George Devol’s longtime partner, notorious bunco artist ‘Canada Bill’ Jones. When a friend found Bill bucking the bank in a gambling hall along the Mississippi in the late 1850s, he warned Bill that the game was brace. ‘Yes,’ replied Bill wistfully, ‘but it’s the only game in town.’
This article was written by John R. Sanders and originally appeared in the October 1996 issue of Wild West.
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By Dr. Michael Echols
During the Civil War, as in all wars, venereal disease was a major problem since it disabled the soldier and decreased his effectiveness to fight or be moved from battle to battle. Dr. Freeman Bumstead was one of the leading authorities on venereal disease during the Civil War and his treatment of one of the most common diseases is outlined below. A copy of his book on the topic of Venereal Disease is a part of this collection.
Preface to the second edition with comments about knowledge of venereal disease during the Civil War
From the Medical and Surgical History regarding the incidence of venereal disease during the War:
'Venereal diseases were associated with intemperance in the conditions which favored their causation. Hence they were more frequent at the beginning and the close of the war than during its progress, and among troops stationed in the vicinity of cities than among those on active service. Elevations of the lines of prevalence during the continuance of the war correspond with the accession of fresh levies or the return of furloughed veterans. Among the white troops, 73,382 cases of syphilis were reported, and 109,397 cases of gonorrhea and gonorrheal orchitis, giving a total of 82 cases of venereal disease annually per thousand men, as compared with 87.86 in our army before the war and 87.62 from the records of the ten years immediately following the war period. Among the colored troops syphilis had an annual rate of 33.8 cases and gonorrheal affections 43.9 cases per thousand of strength. The variations in the monthly rates are shown in the diagram facing page 890. The lines of syphilis and gonorrhœa run courses parallel to that of their consolidation.'
Edited from Dr. Freeman Bumstead's text-book on Venereal Disease (in this collection)
The treatment of gonorrhea must be adapted to the general condition of the patient, and especially to the stage of his disease. In the great majority of oases met with in practice, acute inflammatory symptoms have already set in at the time the patient first applies to the surgeon; but in those exceptional cases which are seen at an early period, and in those only, we may often succeed in cutting short the disease by means of the treatment termed abortive.
Abortive Treatment of the. First Stage.—During the first few days after exposure, varying in number from one to five in different cases, before the symptoms have become acute, when the discharge is but slight and chiefly mucus, and while as yet there is no severe scalding in passing water, we may resort to caustic injections with a view of
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exciting artificial inflammation, which will tend to subside in a few days, and supplanting the existing morbid action, which is liable to continue for an indefinite period and is exposed to various complications. This is known as the ' substitutive,' or more commonly as the ' abortive treatment' of gonorrhea. This method has been inordinately praised and as violently attacked ; its true merit is probably to be found between these two extremes. It is certainly liable to be greatly abused, and, if so, is both unsuccessful and capable of producing the most unpleasant consequences; but. when limited to the early stage of gonorrhea and used with proper caution, it is a highly valuable method of treatment, unattended with danger, and undeserving the censure sometimes cast upon it.
In employing the abortive treatment, there are several points which it is important to recollect:
1. The disease, in the stage to which this treatment is applicable, is limited to the anterior portion of the urethra, known as the fossa navicularis, or extends but a short distance beyond it; it is not necessary, therefore, that the injection should reach the deeper portions of the canal.
2. For the treatment to be successful, the whole diseased surface should receive a thorough application of the injection, for if any portion remain untouched, it will secrete matter that will again light up the disease.
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3. When once a sufficient degree of artificial inflammation is excited, the caustic has accomplished all that can be expected of it and should be suspended. Since a solution of nitrate of silver, which is commonly used in the abortive treatment, is readily decomposed by contact with metallic substances, metal syringes should l>e avoided. Glass syringes, if well made, answer every purpose; but, as found in the shops, they are apt to be unequal in calibre in different parts of the cylinder, the wadding of the piston contracts in drying and a portion of the fluid fails to be thrown out, as is seen by its overflow when the syringe is filled a second time. For these reasons, I never advise a patient to purchase an ordinary glass syringe, knowing that it will probably give him much annoyance, and perhaps prevent his deriving benefit from treatment. We have an excellent substitute in the hard-rubber syringes, which can be obtained at the druggists'
'No. 1 ' (Fig. 1) is the one generally sold when no special form is directed by the surgeon, but its nozzle is objectionable; it is unnecessarily long, its point is apt to irritate the internal wall of the canal, and it is not well adapted to fully distend the meatus.
' No. 1, A ' (Fig. 2), is preferable. The abrupt shoulder near the point is well adapted to fill the meatus, and the short and rounded end cannot abrade the sensitive mucous membrane.
Fig. 3 represents another excellent form, and one which is recommended by Prof. Sigmund, of Vienna. I find a figure of the same in the work of Dr. H. A. Hacker, Die Blcnnorrhden tier Genitnlien, Erlangen, 1850.
The ' urethral syringe with extra long pipe ' (Fig. 4) is, in fact a syringe united to a catheter, and is adapted for injections of the deeper portions of the canal. The catheter portion may lie bent to any curve desired by first oiling it and heating it over a spirit-lamp; its form is then retained by dipping it in cold water.
The solution of nitrate of silver, in the abortive treatment of gonorrhea, may be of considerable strength, when only one injection will be required; or it may be weak, and in that case should be repeated at short intervals until the effect produced be deemed sufficient. I much prefer the latter course, especially with patients who apply to me for the first time, since it enables me to graduate the effect according to the susceptibility of the urethra, which varies in different persons. Inject the weak form of silver nitrate and water:
Goodyear black hard-rubber and a glass syringe
The patient should be made to pass his water immediately before injecting, or, better still, a quarter of an hour before. We wish to clear the urethra of matter, and to have the bladder empty, so that the injection may have some time to act before it is washed away by another passage of the urine, and yet a short interval between the last act of micturition and injection is advisable, in order that as much of the urine as possible may have drained from the canal and little be left to decompose the nitrate of silver. The prepuce should now be fully retracted, and the glans penis exposed. The latter should be wiped dry, so as to afford a firm hold to the thumb and forefinger of the left hand, applied laterally, not from above downwards, and firmly compressing it around the point of the syringe. Call the patient's attention to the fact that the opening of the urethra is a vertical slit; that compressing the glans from above downwards makes this opening gajw while the compression from side to side closes it; hence the importance of exercising the compression in the latter way while taking the injection. If the pressure be properly made, not a drop of the solution will be lost, as the piston of the syringe is slowly forced down by the forefinger of the right hand holding the instrument, and the whole contents will be discharged into the canal. The syringe should now be withdrawn, and th« fluid still retained for a few seconds by continuing the compression of the glans. When the injection is allowed to escape, it will be found to be of a milky-white color. This is due to the partial decomposition of the contained salt by the remains of the urine and the muco-pus in the canal. As this de-coin posit ion has prevented the application of the injection in its full strength to the urethral walls, a second syringeful should be thrown in, and retained for two or three minutes. During this time a finger of the disengaged hand should be run along the under surface of the penis from behind forwards, so as to distend the portion of the canal occupied by the injection, and insure the thorough application of the fluid to the whole mucous surface.
This description of the method of using the syringe is, in the main, applicable to all the injections which may be required in the course of a gonorrhea; but we are now speaking of the abortive treatment, by means of weak injections of nitrate of silver. We will suppose that this first injection has been administered by the surgeon, who, at the same time, has explained the various steps of the operation to the patient. The directions with regard to diet, etc., that will presently be mentioned in speaking of the second stage, should now Ik- given ; the patient should be ordered to repeat the injection every three hours, and, for the present, it is best that he should be seen by the surgeon twice a day. It is also well at this time to prescribe an active purge.
The first effect of the caustic injections is manifested in a few hours; the discharge becomes copious and purulent, and considerable scalding is felt in passing water. In the course of twenty-four to forty-eight hours, however, the discharge grows thin and watery, and, very likely, is tinged with blood. It is now time to stop the injection and omit all medication for a few days, until we see how much good has been accomplished. If the treatment meets with success the discharge will gradually diminish, and finally disappear in from three to five days. Sometimes, however, after growing less, it again increases, showing a tendency to relapse. In this case, I usually advise weak injections of acetate of zinc, as recommended in the third stage of the disease. Some surgeons prefer to resume the caustic injections in the same manner as at first if, after a week has elapsed, any traces of the discharge remain.
The chief objection to this modification of the abortive treatment is, that it is necessary to leave the administration of most of the injections to the patient, who may be prevented by ignorance, or the requirements of his occupation, from using them as thoroughly or as often as is necessary. If we have reason to fear this, we may resort to a stronger solution, and inject it once for all, with our own hands, but I have found the effect decidedly less satisfactory. It was this method of employing the alwrtive treatment that was recommended by Debeney of France, and Carmichael of England, by whom this treatment was first introduced to the profession. The same method is also still employed and highly recommended by many surgeons, and especially by M. Diday of Lyons. The strong injection should not contain less than ten grains (0.65) of the nitrate of silver to the ounce (30.00) of distilled water, and more than fifteen grains are objectionable, unless with patients who have been under treatment before, and in whom the urethra has been found to be quite insensible.
Citations from the Medical/Surgical History--Part III, Volume I
Chapter XI.--On Certain Diseases Not Heretofore Discussed.
V.--Venereal Diseases.
Venereal diseases were associated with intemperance in the conditions which favored their causation. Hence they were more frequent at the beginning and the close of the war than during its progress, and among troops stationed in the vicinity of cities than among those on active service. Elevations of the lines of prevalence during the continuance of the war correspond with the accession of fresh levies or the return of furloughed veterans. Among the white troops, 73,382 cases of syphilis were reported, and 109,397 cases of gonorrhœa and gonorrhœal orchitis, giving a total of 82 cases of venereal disease annually per thousand men, as compared with 87.86 in our army before the war and 87.62 from the records of the ten years immediately following the war period.(*) Among the colored troops syphilis had an annual rate of 33.8 cases and gonorrhœal affections 43.9 cases per thousand of strength. The variations in the monthly rates are shown in the diagram facing page 890. The lines of syphilis and gonorrhœa run courses parallel to that of their consolidation.
The hospital records present 426 cases of venereal disease,--53 of gonorrhœa and 373 of syphilis. Of the former 50 were simple cases and 3 complicated with suppurating bubo. Of the latter 194 developed no constitutional symptoms,--among these, gonorrheal complications were present in 41 and supurating bubo in 77. It is impossible to determine, from the language of the record, the character of the primary sores in 179 cases which were followed by secondary symptoms. The most notable point connected with their history is the frequency with which sore throat, cutaneous eruptions and other manifestations of the constitutional taint are reported as having followed venereal sores associated with suppuration of the inguinal glands: 19 such cases are recorded.
Treatment as a rule was first restricted to the local lesions, mercury or iodide of potassium being withheld until the development of secondary symptoms. No reference is made to scorbutic complications nor to untoward results in constitutions undermined by the hardships of military service. In fact, a similar series of cases might easily have been gathered during the same period in the wards of our civil hospitals. A few reports on file indicate individual views of the method of treating these diseases:
Ass't Surgeon ROBERT F. STRATTON, 11th Ill. Cav., June 30, 1862.--It was impossible to cure gonorrhœa while the patients were exposed to the rain and had to sleep on the damp ground and live on a salt and stimulating ration.
Surgeon WILLIAM R. BLAKESLEE, 115th Pa., Alexandria, Va., Oct. 20, 1862.--Gonorrhœa was greatly modified and in most cases completely subdued by injecting a solution of chlorate of potash, one drachm in eight ounces, every hour for twelve successive hours, and then gradually ceasing its use during the next two or three days by prolonging the interval between each injection. Dietetic rules were observed, with rest and occasionally a saline laxative.
Surgeon A. F. PECK, 1st N. M. Cav., Los Lunas, N. M., Sept., 1862.--Nearly one-third of the cases this month consisted of gonorrhœa, which readily yielded to treatment. With much inflammatory action in the first stage, I generally prescribed a saline cathartic, rest, cooling lotions and low diet. After this stage had passed I found balsam of copaiba, powdered cubebs and magnesia given as a bolus, four or five times a day, to be very effectual. At the same time I used an injection of chloride of zinc, two to four grains to the ounce of water, once or twice a day. When the system is much reduced tonics are beneficial.
Surgeon ISAAC F. GALLOUPE, 17th Mass., Feb. 20, 1863.--Syphilis and gonorrhœa prevailed extensively in the regiment during its stay in Baltimore. Rapid and complete recovery was secured in all cases treated as follows:--Gonorrhœa: Injections of a weak solution of sulphate of zinc, one grain to one ounce of water, every hour or half hour; light diet. By this treatment the disease was always cut short, no discharge appearing after the first use of the injection. Syphilis: Cauterization of the chancre in the first instance, followed by the continuous application of black wash. All cases thus treated recovered without secondary disease.
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Ass't Surgeon P. W. RANDALL, 1st Cal., Fort Bragg, Cal., Jan. 1, 1863.--For gonorrhœa my treatment, which is successful, consists of a thorough cleansing of the alimentary canal, rest, low diet, the balsam and cubebs internally, with urethral injections of nitrate of silver, sugar of lead or sulphate of zinc. For syphilis I use mercurial and saline purges, rest, low diet, iodide of potassium and bichloride of mercury, with caustic to chancres, warts or vegetations.
Surgeon J. G. BRADY, 26th Mass., New Orleans, La., Jan. 1, 1863.--Of the various forms of venereal disease chancre of the non-indurated variety is the most prevalent. It is accompanied in a majority of cases with bubo. The sores yield readily to cauterization with acid nitrate of mercury and applications of black wash, the bowels meanwhile being regulated and the patient kept on low diet. But one case of indurated chancre has been observed, and this was unaccompanied by a bubo. It was treated with mercurials internally and pernitrate of mercury to the sore. Sufficient time has not yet elapsed to determine whether secondary symptoms will be developed, No case of non-indurated chancre has been followed by constitutional symptoms. Gonorrhœa is much less frequent than chancre, and more obstinate under treatment. My practice has been to use injections of sulphate or chloride of zinc; occasionally, when there is irritability of the bladder, I employ diuretics. The cases are prone to become chronic. I have no faith in the empirical use of balsams and diuretics, so long considered specifics in this disease. I consider that, by their tendency to over-stimulate the kidneys, they do more harm than good.
Surgeon DAVID WOOSTER, 5th Cal., Sacramento, Cal., Jan. 13, 1862.--I inoculate every case of chancre. If the virus take, I treat locally and hygienically alone; if it fail to produce chancre after the third inoculation, I use protiodide. The cures in both series of cases are generally reasonably prompt, occupying from fifteen to rarely sixty days. I have not yet had secondary developments in cases the primary accidents of which have been treated at this post.
Surgeon ALLEN F. PECK, 1st N. M. Mounted Vols., Fort Stanton, N. M., Dec. 31, 1862.--Primary: Cauterize with nitrate of silver, after which apply black or yellow wash until the sore is healed. Consecutive: If there is no constitutional contraindication I give mercurials,--the protiodide yields better results than any other preparation. If the patient improves I continue the remedy until the sores are healed and the induration dissipated, using at the same time disinfecting mercurial and astringent washes. If the system is exhausted I give tonics.
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Surgeon EZRA READ, 21st Ind., Baltimore, Md., Sept. 5, 1861.--For many years I have pursued the method of treatment by mercurial fumigation, which deposits the mercury upon the surface of the body when in a state of perspiration induced by the heated vapor of water surrounding the patient confined in a close and air-tight bath. This treatment is commended to our consideration because it eradicates the disease in a shorter period of time than is required by the internal use of mercury; moreover, when thus applied the constitutional effects of the mercury are under satisfactory control. In primary syphilis, after careful and thorough cauterization of the chancre, I regard fumigation as the best method of treating the disease, and as the most reliable means of preventing constitutional manifestations. In the secondary form I think it the only method by which a perfect cure can be effected.