Volume 5

The study of medicine / by John Mason Good.

  • Good, John Mason, 1764-1827.
Date:
1826
    No text description is available for this image
    nor excreted, but received into the blood-vessels and ef- ^kn. x. Spec, v fused under the cuticle, or on a peculiar yellowness of the Epichiosis serum of the blood distinct from any connexion with bile.-* Aungo. •' Urange- Sauvages has rightly distinguished between this disease, skin, as a mere cutaneous affection, and proper jaundice. In lis^ute'a'of him it occurs under the name of ephelis lutea, an impro- Sauvages; per name, however, as the affection is not an ephelis orpe'riyso sun-burn ; while the jaundice of infancy he calls aurigo «=3^'^'^' neophytoruviii which ought rather to be icterus neophyto- rum.f It may in general be remarked that while the sclerotic Sclerotic tunic of the eyes as well as the skin is tinged with yellow ^V"J^,"°_^ in the genuine jaundice of infants, the former retains itsed in au- proper whiteness in aurigo. Whence the serum derives u^flf^nily the yellow hue it so strikingly evinces on some occa-'" J^»"- sions, except from the bile, it is diflUcuIt to determine. That a certain proportion of bile exists constantly in the blood in a healthy state is manifest, as we have already observed, from the colour of the urine, and the tinge given to linen by the matter of insensible perspiration : and that this proportion varies in different climates, and different seasons of the year, without producing genuine jaundice, we have observed also. And hence, infants under particular circumstances, may be subject to a like increase with a like absence of icteritious symptoms. But what those circumstances are, do not seem to be clearly known. We see nevertheless that whatever rouses the system generally, and the excretories pecu- liarly, readily takes off the saffron dye : and hence it often yields to a few brisk purges, and still more rapidly to an emetic. * Synops. Nosol. Med. Gen, xn. .'. + Nosolog. Method, in rebus.
    SPECIES yi. EPICHROSIS P(ECILIA. CUTICLE MARBLED GENERALLY, WITH ALTERNATE PLOTS OR PATCHES OF BLACK AND WHITE. Gen. X. PcEciLiA (tfoiuXict) is a term of Isocrates, from 5r«<*/^«f» Spec VI Origin of " versicoIor" " pictus diver.sis coloribus;" whence Pcecile specific tiig porch or picture-gallery of the Stoics at Athens. This species is new to nosological classification; but the morbid affection has been long known to physiologists, and ought to have had a niche in the catalogue of dis- eases before now. Chiefly This affection is chiefly found among negroes from an among ne- irregular secretion or distribution of the pigment which ^J^"^^~^"'^ gives the black hue to the rete mucosum. In Albinoes, as we shall have occasion to observe presently, this pig- ment is entirely withheld, and the matter of the rete mu- cosum seems to be otherwise affected ; in the species be- fore us it is only irregularly or interruptedly distributed. Physioio- What the cause of this interrupted distribution con- I'^j^nJj^^^'sists in, we know not; but in several of the preceding Beautiful species of the present genus, and particularly in moles dute/by' ^nd frccklcs, we perceive a striking tendency to such an an inter- effect; and if we turn our attention to tlie animal and rupted and ' ,11, . . . diversified Vegetable world around us, we shall observe it springing tion'of'ihe'^^^°^® US in a thousand different ways, and giving rise to colouring an infinite diversity of the nicest and most elegant cuta- ™e"rete° "eous tapestry. It is in truth, as the author has already mucosum remarked in the volume of Nosology, to the partial se- and plants, cretion or distribution of this natural pigment that we illustrated, are indebted for all the variegated and beautiful hues
    evinced by different kinds of animals and plants. It is ^en. x. this which gives us the fine red or violet that tinges the Epichmsis nose and hind-quarters of some baboons, and the exqui-^"f^^'^'^jj^^^ site silver that whitens the belly of the dolphin, and other skin, cetaceous fishes. In the toes and tarsal membrane of ravens and turkeys, it is frequently black; in common hens and peacocks, gray : blue in the titmouse, green in the water hen, yellow in the eagle, orange in the stork, and red in some species of the scolopax. It affords that sprightly intermixture of colours which besprinkle the skin of the frog and salamander. But it is for the gay and glittering scales of fishes, the splendid metallic shells of beetles, the gaudy eye-spots that bedrop the wings of the butter-fly, and the infinitely diversified hues of the flower-garden that nature reserves the utmost force of this ever-varying pigment, and sports with it in her hap- piest caprices. While lam writing, says Dr. Swediaur, I have before i" ^ Euro. me a friend who, after residing abroad for many years, ^ at first in the East Indies, and then in the West, re- turned to Europe with a skin variegated with white spots like those of a tiger. In other respects he is well.* In some cases, a diversified colour of the skin appears a diveisifi- to be hereditary among mankind. Blumenbach gives an sometimes example of a Tartar tribe, whose skin was generally ^^'^^'^'^^'y- spotted like the leopard's.f Individuals thus motley co-Pye-baiied loured are commonly called pye-balled negroes, or are"'^^'^"^ " said to have pye-balled skins. ;j,'k The Medico-Physical Society of New York, lias lately The black published a case communicated by Dr. Emery Bissel, in sometimes which a man of the Brotherton tribe of Indians, ninety S'^duaiiy *' earned on, years of age, had been gradually becoming white for the and a last thirty years of his life. The first appearance of this be^om'es'a change was a small white patch near the pit of the sto-white. mach, soon after an attack of acute rheumatism; which ^e'd "' M'as shortly accompanied with other white spots in the vicinity that enlarged and at length intermixed. And * Nov. Nosol. Meth. Syst. Vol. n. p. 20-1. + De Generis Hum, Varintate NativaL,
    No text description is available for this image