Note 112 — DISSERTATION VI.

It is to be regretted, that some who belong to our profession, reason upon the nature of ulcers, not from appearances and characteristic marks, but from the patients manner of life, or the idea which they have formed of the country whence they come. I remember two instances of people who came from the Hebrides, the one with a cancer of the lip, the other with a cancerous ulcer on the neck, both fungous, and possessing the burning pain, and every character of cancer; but as the sibbens unluckily prevailed in that country, it was thought that the patients might have received this infection, and accordingly were, by a full consultation of surgeons, condemned to undergo a course of mercury. The lip was, in three days, greatly worse; the mercury was omitted, and the patient cured by an operation. The sore on the neck was instantly exasperated, and the patient, to use the words of Hildanus, “had her soul speedily sent to heaven.”