Reprint of Two Tracts 1. An essay on gleets. 2. An enquiry into the nature, cause, and cure of a singular disease of the eyes — Inside the Classic

Marat's Clinical Voice and Rhetorical Structure

The tracts reveal a writer who blends empirical observation with systematic exposition. In the eye disease tract, Marat first investigates the nature and cause of the condition, then critiques previous misdiagnoses (such as gutta serena), and finally presents a rational treatment plan. His prose is direct and authoritative, often using first-person statements like “I should imagine” or “Such is the Method I have pursued.” The case of Charlotte Blondel, an eleven-year-old girl whose sight deteriorated after mercurial treatment for worms, is recounted with clinical detachment yet includes specific details: her age, constitution, the progression of symptoms, and the failure of a famous oculist and a friar. Marat does not claim universal success but presents this as “the only ones of the Kind I ever attempted.”

Therapeutic Regimens and Material Culture of Medicine

Marat's treatments reflect eighteenth-century humoral and mechanical theories. For the eye disease, he prescribes a low diet avoiding spirits, tea, coffee, and chocolate; bleeding at the foot weekly; cassia as a laxative; antispasmodic fumigations conveyed to the eyes via a “proper Instrument”; emollient poultices to the temples; and eventually electrical sparks drawn from the canthi of the eyes. The regimen is detailed and sequential, with explicit durations (“for a whole Month,” “during a few Weeks”). The gleet tract likely follows a similar pattern, though the excerpts focus on the eye disease. This material specificity—listing barley-water, whey, marsh-mallows infusion, or orgeate as allowed drinks—gives a vivid sense of domestic medical practice in the 1770s.

Rarity and Editorial Framing

Bailey's introduction emphasizes the scarcity of these pamphlets: the gleet tract was long thought lost, with only one copy later discovered; the eye tract survives in a single copy at the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society. The edition itself was printed for private circulation in only 84 copies. Bailey also clarifies Marat's medical credentials, noting that his St. Andrews degree was honorary, granted on recommendation without examination. This editorial framing invites readers to consider the works as historical artifacts rather than authoritative medical texts. The tracts are presented as curiosities—evidence of Marat's intellectual range and the state of medical knowledge in late eighteenth-century London.

Readers approaching these tracts should set aside expectations of modern medical accuracy and instead attend to Marat's rhetorical strategies, his engagement with contemporary theories of the body, and the material details of his practice. The editor's introduction provides essential context for understanding the works' rarity and significance. For those interested in the history of medicine, the Enlightenment, or Marat's multifaceted career, these pamphlets offer a focused, evidence-based glimpse into a lesser-known aspect of his life.

The rain kept up its steady drumming on the windowsill that afternoon. Marat’s clinical notes on a singular eye disease made me pause—how desperately he wanted to see clearly. Later, I found myself drifting toward another old voice, and opened Galen: On the Natural Faculties — Edition Insights almost by accident. His antiquity felt strangely warm, less diagnosis, more patient wonder.