The conditions which modify the characters of inflammations of the skin, and their influence on treatment : being the Lettsonian lectures at the Medical Society of London, on February 16, March 2 and 16, 1903 / by H. Radcliffe-Crocker.

  • Crocker, H. Radcliffe (Henry Radcliffe), 1845-1909
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The conditions which modify the characters of inflammations of the skin, and their influence on treatment : being the Lettsonian lectures at the Medical Society of London, on February 16, March 2 and 16, 1903 / by H. Radcliffe-Crocker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    employment is found in syphilis and leprosy; but I will not dwell on their value for these diseases, as they do not come within the scope of these lectures. But in some obstinate and extensive cases of psoriasis, when other internal medication has failed, and where the patient cannot lie up for efficient local treatment, I have had very gratifying success with injections of mercury salts. These injections should always be intra-muscular, and not subcutaneous ; the latter are much more painful, and are liable to produce sloughs at the site of injection. In my opinion the soluble salts are prefer- able, as they are less liable to produce severe and even dangerous salivation than the insoluble salts, with which there have been several accidents, although really a very small number compared to the thousands of injections given. The perchloride and sozoiodolate are the salts chiefly emplojmcl; the latter is the best, as it is equally efficacious and less painful. The dose is a quarter of a grain dissolved by the aid of one-third of a grain of iodide of sodium in 20 minims of water, injected into the buttocks once or twice a week. As the biniodicle and perchloride of mercury by the mouth have proved useful in lichen planus, probably intra-muscular injections would be still more efficacious, but they should not be employed until other means have been thoroughly tried, as the injections are painful and would probably not be tolerated unless the patient had tried and failed to get relief by other treatment. Mercurial injections have also been used for lupus vulgaris with some measure of success, but there are other means at our disposal for this disease. Arsenical injections have been occasionally used f<jr chronic inflammations of the skin, such as would be benefited by the same drug given by the mouth, but the results have not been sufficiently good to warrant their being recommended, and their only use seems to be for sarcomatous tumours as first recommended by Kobner. Mycosis fungoicles has also undergone temporary amelioration with them. The potash salt is much more painful than the soda salt, and the latter therefore is the one to be preferred, and here also intra-muscular injections are less painful than subcutaneous ones. Cacodylate of soda and the similar body called arrhenal have not, as Professor Fraser has shown, justified their laudatory introduction. Subcutaneous injections of thiosinimin were first recommended by Hans Hebra for lupus vulgaris, but other methods were found to be