A manual of the practice of medicine / by Frederick Taylor.

  • Taylor, Frederick, Sir.
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of the practice of medicine / by Frederick Taylor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    918/990 (page 896)
    reach has led to its being mistaken for Addison's disease and other pigment affections. The peculiar,colour, the convex edge, and the ready desquamation of the surface should be quite dis- tinctive, and the diagnosis is at once confirmed by the microscope. Treatment.—It is quickly cured by rubbing in lotions of sodium hyposulphite (1 in 8) or of sulphurous acid, or finely powdered borax. It may, however, return if the same under- clothing is used without thorough washing and disinfection. ANIMAL PARASITES. SCABIES. Scabies, or itch, is a multiform disease of the skin, due to the irritation of the itch-acarus, Sarcoptes hominis. The female acarus is oval in shape, inch in length, presents in front four little nipj)le-shaped processes provided with suckers on stalks, and behind four similar processes provided with long bristles. The male is smaller, has four suckers in front, two suckers and two bristles behind. The female after impregnation bores her way under the skin in an oblique direction, so that as the superficial layers of the epidermis are detached by friction, she still remains the same depth from the surface. As she proceeds she lays her eggs, one or two daily, it is said, and she may thus burrow through the skin in an irregular line for a third or half an inch. Such a burrow {cuniculus) or run may be recognized on the surface of the skin by the following points :—At one end, the epi- dermis is broken or frayed, and the free edges are dirty ; at the other end is a minute white pointed elevation, in which the acarus lies ; the burrow itself, between these points, is a sinuous black line. The whole burrow may be snipped off with a pair of scissors curved on the flat, or shaved off with a scalpel; and if it be then moistened with potash and examined, there will be seen the female acarus, and behind her, filling the burrow, her eggs in every stage of incubation, with minute black spots of excremental matter among them. As the skin desquamates, the most developed ova come to the surface, and are hatched. The male does not burrow, but remains on the surface, where he may be sometimes accidentally caught. As a result of the invasion of the itch-acarus, there are con- siderable itching and dermatitis of variable extent and character. The itching is mild or severe, but not generally so bad as that caused by pediculi. It is worst at night when the patient is warm in bed. The dermatitis consists of papules, vesicles, pustules, or even bullae, which generally appear in the neigh- bourhood of the burrows, but also in parts more remote. Not infrequently a vesicle or pustule forms in the burrow itself. In