A handbook on diseases of the skin : with especial reference to diagnosis and treatment / by Robert Liveing.

  • Liveing, Robert, 1834-1919.
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A handbook on diseases of the skin : with especial reference to diagnosis and treatment / by Robert Liveing. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    strating the presence of the acarus. Yee; but this mode of proof is not always convenient, and in some cases where treatment has been already commenced, not even possible. In such a case, the history may be of great diagnostic value. Again, even the ' subjective phenomena 1 are use ful in determining the nature of a skin affection. We have not unfrequently to deal with mild cases of inter- mittent urticaria, an affection which is often of such a transitory nature that the wheals and even the irritability of the skin may have vanished at the very time when the patient presents himself for examination, and consequently we have to draw our conclusions from the history and the subjective sensations of burning and itching described by the sufferer. I have said enough, however, for the present, to show that Hebra's dictum must not be pressed too closely in actual practice. I. In order to make a successful examination of a patient suffering from skin disease, it is very necessary to have some systematic method of procedure. The rule of the first importance in all cases is, to examine the different parts of the body on which any eruption is present. For this purpose, it is not generally necessary to expose a large cutaneous surface at one and the same time. The parts of the body should be examined in succession, and the state of each noted at the time of examination. The importance of this rule can scarcely be over-estimated; indeed, in some cases, it is almost essential to a correct diagnosis. Everyone is acquainted with the fact that dermato-syphilis may be present in no less than five or six different forms of eruption in one and the same individual; and further—and this is the point—some of these forms may be highly characteristic, while others would hardly serve as means of diagnosis. Under these circumstances, a partial examination might lead to grave error and entail an unsuccessful course of treatment. b 2