On the progress of cutaneous medicine during the present century : being the annual oration delivered May, 1876, before the Medical Society of London / by Erasmus Wilson.

  • Wilson, Erasmus, Sir, 1809-1884.
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the progress of cutaneous medicine during the present century : being the annual oration delivered May, 1876, before the Medical Society of London / by Erasmus Wilson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    need not allude to the adjuvantia and corroborantia with which sulphate of magnesia may be associated: this part of the subject is left to the judgment and experience, I might even say, to the taste and refine- ment, of the prescriber. Secondly, let us take arsenic, the typical remedy for defective nutritive power in every tissue of the frame— the special agent of cure of the debility of the nutritive period of life; and under this head we may include the eczema of infancy, chronic eczema at every period of existence, the impetigos and ringworms of children, and the lepra vulgaris of all ages. Thirdly, there is a branch of nutritive diseases which is peculiarly represented by cod-liver oil—namely, struma and lupus. We cannot adopt struma as a group by itself, but only as a sub-group of the much more comprehensive family of diseases resulting from defect of nutritive power; whilst another sub-group of the same great family is one which includes epithelioma and cancer. As a fourth remedy let us take quinine, which we may justly regard as representing the leading feature of cure in all the neurotic or neuropathic affections. And, finally, we have mercury and iodide of potas- sium, which represent another extensive and important group of diseases. Were I, then, to sum up the necessary qualifications of a good dermatologist on the data I have just enunci- ated, I might say—that he should observe with Willan,