Skin diseases, an inquiry into their parasitic origin, and connection with eye affections : also the fungoid or germ theory of cholera / by Jabez Hogg.

Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Skin diseases, an inquiry into their parasitic origin, and connection with eye affections : also the fungoid or germ theory of cholera / by Jabez Hogg. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    If this be so, how necessary it is to possess a perfect knowledge of the microscopical anatomy of the skin, and of the pathological processes which determine and maintain the human frame in a healthy state! Who can rise from a study of the outer covering of the body, and say that when abnormal changes are ob- served in any part of it they belong to a distinct and separate nosological order ? No one doubts that disease, whether of the external or internal parts of the body, must be considerably modified by the anatomical or struc- tural arrangements in its own immediate locality. An eruption taking place on the surface of the body is but a manifestation of a pathological change in the organization generally, modified by the structure in which it makes itself apparent to the eye. It has been observed that although tiie quantative and qualitative errors of the chemical composition of the different structures of the body attract and demand much attention, neverthe- less little is known of the causes on which these errors depend. The excess or deficiency in the supply of nutritive material—the wrong quality and quantity of the matter supplied—the wrong chemistry, in the act of assimilation in the different textures—the excess or deficiency of chemical action in the removal by the used organs—these constitute a multitude of diseases; some of which are known as hypertrophy, atrophy, and de- generation ; and most of which are only guessed at even at the present day. As regards the pathological anatomy of the skin, it is believed, and with a good show of truth, that the varied forms of cutaneous affections are essentially of an inflammatory type, differing among themselves in intensity, and changing with the inflammation present and the part affected. Take eczema as an example. In this disease the papillse are the chief seat of the affection; and in the earliest stage of the disease these bodies