On naevi materni and dilatations of the vessels of the integument / by Holmes Coote.

  • Coote, Holmes, 1817-1872.
Date:
[1850]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On naevi materni and dilatations of the vessels of the integument / by Holmes Coote. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    (7 ON NiEYI MATERNI AND DILATATIONS OF THE VESSELS OF THE INTEGDMENT. By HOLMES COOTE, Esq. DEMONSTRATOR OF ANATOMY AT ST. BARTHOLOMEW’S HOSPITAL. Read on Thursday, January 17, 1850. I am induced to offer a few observations upon the intimate structure of those spots or markings of the integument known as naevi materni, because I attri- bute the very great discrepancies in opi- nion, both as to the symptoms by which they are characterised and the course which they ultimately take, to a want of accurate information as to the imme- diate seat of the disease in its several I varieties. The word mevus, which cor- responds exactly with “ mother-spot,” or “ Mutter-mahl,” is the Latin expression for any congenital mole or mark on the body, and was formerly applied to two very different conditions of the integu- ment : the one, a simple discolouration, dependent upon the accumulation of pigmentrcells under the cuticle; the other, a soft red spot, caused by a vari- cose or dilated state of the cutaneous bloodvessels. Of the former, but little need be said; it is, as Dr. Bateman described it, a superficial stain-like spot of yellowish-brown or brownish-black hue, and sometimes covered with long hah', when it resembles in a slight de- gree the skin of the rat or mouse: al- ways congenital, and enlarging only in accordance with the growth of the body, it rarely requires surgical interference. The great pathological point of interest connected with this subject is, that when melanosis attacks the skin as a primary disease it is always in one of these dark-coloured spots or moles that the morbid accumulation of pigment is first observed: the knowledge of this fact should deter us from unnecessarily irritating them by acupuncture needles or by caustic. The latter, or vascular naevus, desig- nated in modern surgical works by the barbaric term of “ teleangeiectasis,” con- sists of a congeries of bloodvessels, and has its seat either in the cutis or in the subcutaneous areolar tissue, where it was described by Petit under the name of “ loupes variqueuses.” I read in a sur- gical manual that it is doubtful whether this is always a congenital affection, or whether it may be developed in after fife. There is no doubt upon the matter: infants are frequently born with these naevi; hut in a very great number of instances the disease is first noticed a few days or a few weeks after birth as a bright red spot, perhaps not larger than a pin’s head, either imbedded in, or projecting from the skin. The cuta- neous naevus, of more florid red colour the more superficial its seat, resembles, as it enlarges, a small thin-walled blad- der, filled with blood, and surrounded by dilated and tortuous vessels, visible through the delicate transparent integu- ment. By pressure, which is the more easily effected if the naevus he placed over a bone, the blood can be squeezed out, when the natural colour of the skin is partially restored ; but soon the blood is seen re-entering the dilated tubes, and