Skin diseases : their description, pathology, diagnosis, and treatment with a copious formulary / by Tilbury Fox.

  • Fox, Tilbury, 1836-1879.
Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Skin diseases : their description, pathology, diagnosis, and treatment with a copious formulary / by Tilbury Fox. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    SKIN DISEASES CHAPTER I. GENERAL REMARKS. THE complex structure of the human skin presents a greater variety of morbid phenomena than any other part of the animal economy; a fact which might readily be presumed from a consideration of its extent of surface, its complex anatomy, its division into layers, and from being at once the seat of the organ of touch, of sundry peculiar secretions, and of the elimination of the sensible and insen- sible perspiration. (Pharm. Skin Hosp.) This quotation sums up, in general terms, the features of skin diseases. Their diversity of form is due to diversity of structure, which is again necessitated by the diversity of function which exists; and it is the latter which characterises the skin as a diseased organ, when compared with other parts of the economy. In the first place the skin affords protection; secondly (in consequence of its being the organ of touch and sensation), it is supplied with a delicate nervous expansion easily irritated; in the capacity of an absorptive and secretory agent, it possesses a well-furnished and abun- dant circulation, exposed not only to external but also to internal ill influences,—e. g.} a disordered quantity or quality of blood; lastly, in the performance of its duties as a regulator B