Case of thickening and deep fissures of the skin in an infant at birth / by Alexander Keiller. Notes of cases of intra-uterine cutaneous disease analogous to that described in the preceding article, with remarks on the pathological nature of the affection / by J.Y. Simpson.

  • Keiller, Alexander, 1811-1892.
Date:
[1843]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Case of thickening and deep fissures of the skin in an infant at birth / by Alexander Keiller. Notes of cases of intra-uterine cutaneous disease analogous to that described in the preceding article, with remarks on the pathological nature of the affection / by J.Y. Simpson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    A few brown hairs were present on the head. The nose scarcely project¬ ed from the face, the cartilages being apparently bound down by the thick and almost horny integument which covered them. The auricles were also in a rudimentary state, and the foramina obscured and narrowed by the thickened epidermis. The eyes had the appearance of red fleshy projections. This arose, however, from the upper eyelids being completely everted, so that the palpebral conjunctiva projected between the two tarsal cartilages, which had been stopped in their growth by the thick and horny epidermis; on raising the red tumour, the ball of the eye itself was seen to be healthy. The mouth was kept widely open from the contraction of the epidermis. The external genital organs had also the appearance of having been arrested in their development. The extremities were well formed, but the hands and feet were much dis¬ figured by a collection of matter under the skin, which was so much thinned and distended that the whole had the appearance of a scrofulous tumour. The matter, which was a reddish sanies, extended up to the points of the fingers, and gave them a deformed curved appearance, so as to resemble claws. Nothing abnormal was found in the interior of the thorax. The child lived for fifty hours; it cried feebly, but deglutition and respi¬ ration were easy; it passed some meconium, but no urine. M. Souty has deposited it in the Musee Dupuytren at Paris. In this case the disease appears to have been originally in a somewhat milder form than in any of the others, and also to have advanced farther in the process of reparation. This is seen from the degree of cicatrization of the fissures, and by the greater distance between the different segments of thick¬ ened epidermis. In all probability, however, the surface had been at one time in much the same condition as in the other cases. This case also clearly shows that the disease was originally confined to the epidermis, and that the deeper parts, as the cartilages of the ears and nose, the external genital organs, &c. were contracted and disfigured simply from being confined by the thick and unexpansible epidermic covering. The degree of development of these parts thus gives us pretty accurate information as to the period of intra¬ uterine life at which the disease supervened, or at least the period at which it acquired such a degree of intensity, that the skin had become so thickened as to be able to repress these subjacent parts in their growth. BALFOUR AND JACK, PRINTERS.