On the local effects of crude paraffin / by Alex. Ogston.

  • Ogston, Alexander, 1844-1929.
Date:
[1871]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the local effects of crude paraffin / by Alex. Ogston. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    (2(!c^ 6^122; / / LOCAL EFFECTS OF CRUDE PARAFFIN. By ALEX. OGSTON, M.D., Aberdeen. {Reprinted from the Edinburgh Medical Journal for December 1871.) The Messrs Miller’s Chemical Works at Aberdeen have afforded the opportunity for collecting the following information concerning the appearances produced on the skin of those engaged in the manufacture of paraffin, which seems of sufficient interest to war¬ rant being recorded :— The workmen engaged in this manufacture have the skin over portions of their bodies, more especially of the hands and arms, but also of the feet and legs, brought daily for many hours at a time into contact with the paraffin shale, and with the oily matters mixed up with it, the result being an eruption of nodules and pimples on the skin so exposed, speedily breaking out on those who are for the first time engaged in it, lasting for a few weeks or months, and then generally diminishing or disappearing. In a few exceptional in¬ dividuals the eruption does not disappear, but, assuming a chronic character, produces so marked and prolonged an affection of the skin that the general health becomes impaired, and the cessation of this employment becomes a necessity. The appearances differ in the two classes of cases, acute and chronic, and, while the essential alterations in the skin remain the same, the presence of inflam¬ matory action in the acute, and its absence in the chronic forms, leads to a marked distinction between the two, and admits of their being separately described. ft In the acute form of the eruption, which soon appears in those exposed to the influences of crude paraffin, the skin of the hands, wrists, arms, feet, and legs becomes covered with a rash of bright red nodules, closely approximate to each other, and usually largest and most numerous on the wrists, or wherever the dress tightly em¬ braces the skin ; the dorsal aspects of the parts being most severely affected, and the palms of the hands and soles of the feet enjoying a complete immunity. Similar nodules arise, though to a less ex¬ tent, on the face, neck, and other parts of the body to which the oily matters find access. On examining minutely the skin of those affected in this way,