Lectures on clinical surgery. Vol. I. Pt. I. On certain rare diseases of the skin / by Jonathan Hutchinson.

  • Jonathan Hutchinson
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on clinical surgery. Vol. I. Pt. I. On certain rare diseases of the skin / by Jonathan Hutchinson. 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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    EELAPSING CONSTITUTIONAL EEUPTIONS. l&l all ought to be made to arrange themselves under the names intended only for well-characterised types of each. A very well marked natural group of skin dieases is that which includes eruptions which have a marked tendency to relapse or to recur. A person in good healthy without warning and without known cause, has an eruption show itself on various parts. The spots are usually arranged symmetrically on the limbs of the two sides, or on corre- sponding parts of the trunk. By this symmetry, often very accurate, you see at once that the disease is of constitutional origin. The eruption usually comes out rather quickly and in a few weeks has reached a considerable extent. Still the patient often suffers no detriment to his general health, excepting such as may be attributed to the direct irritation, &c., of the rash, or to the amount of discharge produced by it. These eruptions show but little tendency to observe stages or to undergo spontaneous cure. They persist for long and indefinite periods, liable, however, to occasional aggravation. Now and then they go away entirely, but if they do so the patient is certain sooner or later to suffer again. If cured by internal treatment (and most of them are easily influ- enced) the tendency to relapse or recur after longer or shorter periods is invariably shown. There is no such thing as a complete and permanent cure. The terms constitu- tional or relapsing diseases are therefore very applicable. We have as yet not attained to a knowledge of their precise cause. They are well-marked disorders, and have been the subject of more or less accurate description by every one who has written on skin diseases. They appear to be nearly equally common in the two sexes, in all classes of society, and in all countries in which as yet accurate sta- tistics have been collected. Season does not always appear to exercise much influence on the tendency to relapse, but certain other influences, as for instance lactation in women.
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