Healthy skin : a popular treatise on the skin and hair, their preservation and management / by Erasmus Wilson.

Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Healthy skin : a popular treatise on the skin and hair, their preservation and management / by Erasmus Wilson. 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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    to the atmosphere, its junction with the skin taking phice at the abrupt line where the red joins the lighter tinted covering of the face. The entrance-tube of the ear is a cul-de-sac of about an inch in length, and lined by mucous membrane. This circumstance explains the discharges of matter from the ear which not unfre- quently take place in children; for it is the ordinar}' cha- racter of mucous membrane, when in a state of inflam- mation, to send forth a discharge, but not so the external skin. An important medical law is founded on the continuity and similarity of structure of the investing and lining mem- brane of the body. This law resolves itself into three expres- sions—namely, that disease affecting a part of a membrane is liable to spread to the lohole; secondly, ^//a^ disease of the mucous membrane may spread to the skin, and vice versa; and thirdly, that disease of a part of a mucous membrane may become translated to a distant part of the skin, and vice versa. As illustrations of a popular kind of these three positions, I may adduce, in evidence of the first, the f-preading nature of St. Anthony's fire, or erysipelas; of the second, the itching of the nose and lips in children from irritation of the alimentary canal caused by the presence of worms; or the eruption around the lips which follows slight attacks of cold or feverishness. The third position explains the coincidence of dyspepsia and other internal disorders with cutaneous rashes and eruptions. It must have been observed by every one, that the skin is composed of two layers; for these we see separated from each other by the action of a common blister. One of these layers, namely, that which is raised by the fluid of a blister, is the scarf-skin, also called the cuticle, or epideritiis, while that which retains its connexion with the substance of the body is the sensitive skin, the cutis or derma. These layers perform very difierent offices in the animal economy, and are widely different from each other in structure. The scarf-skin is horny and insensible, and is a sheath of protection to the highly sensitive skin