On the nomenclature and classification of disease of the skin / by L. Duncan Bulkley.

  • Bulkley, Lucius Duncan, 1845-1928.
Date:
[1881]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the nomenclature and classification of disease of the skin / by L. Duncan Bulkley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ON THE NOMENCLATURE AND CLASSIFICA¬ TION OF DISEASES OF THE SKIN.* By L. DUNCAN BULKLEY, A.M., M.D., ATTENDING PHYSICIAN FOR SKIN AND VENEREAL DISEASES AT THE NEW YORK HOSPITAL, OUT¬ PATIENT DEPARTMENT ; LATE PHYSICIAN TO THE SKIN DEPARTMENT, DEMILT DISPENSARY, NEW YORK, ETC. IT cannot be denied that much of the confusion which has hitherto attended the study of dermatology, and its comprehension by the general practitioner, has, to a cer¬ tain degree, been owing to the chaos which has always ex¬ isted in the matter of the nomenclature of this branch from the earliest time even up to the present day. As an illus¬ tration, the most marked one, it is true, may be mentioned the fact that no less than one hundred and twenty Latin names are associated with eczema, by different writers, while the total number of designations applied to this eruption ex¬ ceeds one hundred and eighty! The index of Mr. Wilson’s lectures on eczema contains 49 names referred to in the text, that of McCall Anderson’s treatise on eczema has 43, while 34 names are found thus connected in Duhring’s treatise on diseases of the skin. A little study of the no¬ menclature of this branch will show it to be most incongru¬ ously formed or developed, and the terms in it to be often ignorantly and wrongly applied. The subject of the classification of diseases of the skin has * Presented in abstract at the International Medical Congress, London, Au¬ gust, 1881. After the presentation of the classification a committee of five was appointed to consider the subject, and to report at the next meeting of the In¬ ternational Medical Congress. This committee was constituted as follows : England, Dr. Robert Liveing; Austria, Dr. Moriz Kaposi; France, Dr. Emile Vidal ; Germany, Dr. Oscar Simon ; America, Dr. L. Duncan Bulkley, Chairman.