[Venereal diseases in a "general practice" in the 17th and early 18th centuries]

[Mercury or sarsaparilla. On the pharmacotherapy of venereal diseases by Johannes Franc (1649-1725) and Friedrich Hoffmann (1660-1742)]

In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, ancient humoral pathology was gradually complemented by new concepts of medical theory. Two important theories that emerged in this context were iatrochemistry and iatrophysics. The physician Johannes Franc (1649-1725) from Ulm and Friedrich Hoffmann (1660-1742), the first professor of the medical faculty of the Fridericiana in Halle (Saale), are representatives of these concepts. In their writings, they conveyed specific instructions for broader therapeutic treatment including various forms of medication. The iatrochemist Franc recorded his therapies in his medical diary. The treatment methods of the iatrophysicist Hoffmann are written down in his twelve-volume Medicina consultatoria. Using the examples of gonorrhea and syphilis, the goal of this paper is to analyze, on the basis of both records, how the two physicians applied the new medical theoretical concepts in the treatment of these diseases. Franc and Hoffmann held the view that these two venereal diseases represent two separate entities. Thus both physicians departed from the traditional theory that gonorrhea was a stage of syphilis. Accordingly, they used different medication therapies for these diseases. Franc and Hoffmann referred to humoral pathological ideas, the discrasia of the humors in expounding the causes of the diseases. The same applies to their basic therapeutic approaches: they implemented humoral pathological concepts in their therapeutic practice. Bloodletting, sweating cures, and water cures as well as strict diets were prescribed. Nevertheless, differences in their treatment methods are clear. Franc consistently supplemented humoral pathology with ideas of iatrochemistry, prescribing treatment of gonorrhea and syphilis with mercury. Hoffmann, on the other hand, explicitly warned against treating gonorrhea with mercury; however, he was not fundamentally opposed to the use of drugs for the treatment of syphilis.