Case of tubercular elephantiasis in a man of English parentage, born in India / by J. Kinnis.

  • Kinnis, John.
Date:
[1844]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Case of tubercular elephantiasis in a man of English parentage, born in India / by J. Kinnis. 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.

    5/8 (page 3)
    fourth day, a few distant, silky hairs are the only representatives of his beard ; and under the inner extremity of each eyebrow is a small thin tuft, the rest being quite bare, wrinkled, and swollen. The whiskers are moderately luxuriant over about one-half of the surface they ought to cover, the other half being studded by bare tubercular elevations. The parts of the body chiefly affected with tubercles are the face, upper limbs, hips, and thighs. The skin covering the cheek bones and bridge of the nose, with two oblique ridges which connect the former to the latter, is red, glossy, thick- ened, smooth, uneven or undulated, and overspread by small se- parate webs of superficial blue veins; there being one on each cheek, and one on the nose, ramifying chiefly on its right side. The lower parts of the face are occupied by two large imbedded clusters and several distinct tubercles, rising little above, and cor- responding nearly in colour with the natural skin : at each angle of the mouth are two, under the nasal partition one, and on the chin another, the two last being of a pale blue colour from super- ficial veins, of which also, one passes into and along the floor of each nostril. The nose, though convex perpendicularly as well as transversely, is low and broad, the tip and left wing are bounded above by a slight depression, on the left by a deep groove, with a tubercle the size of a small pea at its summit, and on the right by another groove which surrounds the right wing—shrunk to half its natural size, and closing like a valve the corresponding nostril. The left nostril is of a square form and moderate size. There are no tubercles within the mouth, or on the ears, but the veins of these are very conspicuous. Beneath the chin, on the mesial plane, is a cluster of imbedded tubercles. On the middle half of the back and outside of both arms, the skin is irregularly thickened, indurated, dry, dark, and glistening ; between the condyles are smaller similar patches, and over the deltoid and biceps muscles, the back and outside of the fore-arms, right wrist, and metacarpus, are clusters and chains of bluish-red slightly raised, oblong tubercles. The backs of the hands, wrists, and fingers are dry, glossy, wrinkled, and the lozenges of the cu- taneous surface converted into large shallow cells, with ridges of doubled cuticle between them. The cuticle of the palms is thick, rough, dry, and in progress of separation, in opaque white scales. While yet in Zante in 1841, the point of his right fore-finger became red, swollen, painful, and, after the application of poul- tices, discharged first matter, then several pieces of bone, and in due time healed. Nearly the whole of the distal phalanx of this finger is now wanting, but the nail remains, shortened by one-third, divided into three unequal portions by longitudinal ridges, and drawn obliquely forwards over the end of the stump, which pre- sents a small triangular scar. The middle phalanx may be bent.