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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    conditions frequently included in works on the diseases of the skin, such as Cyanosis, Icterus, and Chlorosis, are so evidently mis¬ placed, that no long apology seems to me necessary for having left them out; Cyanosis is synonymous witlf a malformation of the heart, Icterus with an obstruction of the biliary ducts, and Chlo¬ rosis with a derangement of the uterine system and chylopoietic viscera. The present state of pathological knowledge, in fact, did not allow me to discuss these affections in a treatise expressly dedicated to the diseases of the skin. Notwithstanding all that has been done in illustration of the diseases of the skin, it is unquestionable that they remain at the present day among the least understood of all the affections to which the human body is liable. A knowledge of the elementary forms under which they appear is an essential preliminary to the study of the whole of their after-stages; a strange alphabet has to be learned before the page of information can be approached; and the slight obstacle thus encountered at the outset too generally rebuts the enquirer, who then either sits down contented in his ignorance, or assumes unguardedly that because he has not at a glance been able to appreciate all that such writers as the learned and ingenious Willan, for instance, declare to be demonstrable, the whole subject is deception, or, if well founded, unavailable for any practical and useful purpose. A very moderate exercise of the virtues of patience and perseverance would certainly lead to very different conclusions. Cutaneous diseases are notoriously rebelli¬ ous to all the modes of treatment usually recommended; and although Eczema, Impetigo, Lepra, Psoriasis, Prurigo, &c., may not directly interfere with the probabilities of a man’s existence, yet no one will ever succeed in persuading him who is suffering under any one of these diseases, that because his malady is not likely to bring him to the grave it is therefore trifling in its nature, and altogether unworthy of the serious attention of the true phy¬ sician. The treatment of cutaneous diseases needs no longer be under¬ taken under the guidance of unenlightened empiricism : in the following pages I have shown it reducible, under every variety of circumstance, to the principles of a rational therapeia. I have also had repeated occasion to mention heated air and sulphur fume baths, as ulterior means of altering the state of vitality of the skin and arousing it from morbid into healthy action. I may 'well be excused for holding these powerful agents in the estimation I do. For some years after entering on private practice in London, I