A practical compendium of the diseases of the skin, including a particular consideration of the more frequent and intractable forms of these affections; with cases / By Jonathan Green.

  • Green, Jonathan, 1788?-1864.
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical compendium of the diseases of the skin, including a particular consideration of the more frequent and intractable forms of these affections; with cases / By Jonathan Green. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    but the sulphur seems to have a sedative and most advantageous effect, both in forwarding the disease to the crustaceous and squamous state, and in diminishing the itching and acrimonious discharge which is often so profuse. This effect of the sulphur fume bath in impetigo, is no where to be found mentioned in the French writers on cutaneous diseases ; but, from repeated experience, I am positive of the accuracy of what has been stated above. This remedy seems even of itself to prevent the disease from acquiring the variety of forms which dis¬ tinguish it when inveterate ; nevertheless, in my own practice I commonly advise bleeding before trying the fume baths; but this not being always submitted to, or enforced, led to the observation of the effect just mentioned. The following cases will, I believe, be found not uninteresting, as containing details of aggravated forms of impetigo. CASE OF IMPETIGO. In 1822, a gentleman of a sanguine bilious habit consulted me, who had been afflicted from boyhood with a running tetter, which he attributed to having been bathed in the sea, by way of strength¬ ening him, when a weakly child. The disease then made its appearance in various parts of the body, and he had scarcely ever been free from it till the time when he consulted me, at the age of forty-five. He had been under the care of the late Dr. Wilkin, and of all the most eminent professional gentlemen in this country and on the continent ; and as his liberality and refined manners soon attached his medical attendants to him, they in succession became his most anxious friends, and of course left no means that were either likely or unlikely to do him good untried ; even measures the most opposite and unknown in the circle of regular practice had their trial, and very commonly with the consent of his medical advisers. The greatest relief he had ever expe- rienced, was derived from the use of sulphurous fumigations, but being dissatisfied with the rude mode in which they were adminis¬ tered, a medical friend brought him to consult me. He was at this time nearly covered from head to foot with the malady; he durst not rise from his chair, save slowly and with extreme caution, for any quick movement occasioned the skin to crack in various places, and besides the pain which this occasioned, a profusion of excoriating discharge speedily poured out from the fissures, spreading and extending the disease wherever it was suf¬ fered to remain. The thigdis and legs looked like the stumps of decayed trees, (impetigo scabida,) and the feet were so much swollen as to compel him to wear large slippers. Notwithstanding the apparent extent of the disease under which he laboured, the patient’s general health and spirits were good, and it was decided that he should try the fumigating baths alone; of these, he took one hundred and twenty-seven, almost, in daily suc¬ cession, and during the whole of the time took no other medicine 6——d grn 7