An Essay on Gleets and Eye Disease

This volume brings together two influential 18th-century medical treatises, offering a compelling window into the theories and practices of early modern medicine. An Essay on Gleets examines the chronic condition known as gleet—a persistent urethral discharge often associated with gonorrhea—exploring its symptoms, causes, and contemporary treatments through detailed observations and case studies. The work reflects the period’s growing efforts to understand and manage venereal disease with greater precision and clinical insight. The second work, An Enquiry into the Nature, Cause, and Cure of a Singular Disease of the Eyes, investigates a rare and poorly understood eye disorder. Combining clinical experience with contemporary medical scholarship, the author analyzes the disease’s symptoms, possible origins, and experimental methods of treatment, revealing both the challenges and ambitions of 18th-century ophthalmology. Together, these treatises illuminate the intellectual curiosity, observational rigor, and evolving medical knowledge of their era. This combined reprint will appeal to historians of medicine, healthcare professionals interested in the roots of their discipline, and readers fascinated by the development of medical science.