On the vegetable nature of tinea favosa (porrigo lupinosa of Bateman) : its symptoms, causes, pathology, and treatment / by John Hughes Bennett.

  • Bennett, John Hughes, 1812-1875.
Date:
[1842]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the vegetable nature of tinea favosa (porrigo lupinosa of Bateman) : its symptoms, causes, pathology, and treatment / by John Hughes Bennett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    munication, however, I shall endeavour to give a succinct history of the disease, as I have observed it at the Hopital St Louis in Paris, and in the cases just alluded to, bring forward a new view of its pathology, and point out a line of treatment based upon this, which has succeeded in every case where it has been fairly tried, even when all other methods had failed. Mode of Development and Symptoms. — 13y most writers, amongst whom may be cited Willan, Bateman, Biett, Cazenave, and Rayer, tinea favosa is described as commencing in a pustule, which breaks and forms the peculiar scab. Others, such as Bau- delocque, Mahon, Alibert, and Gibert, deny its pustular nature, and state that it commences in a crust. With a view of deter- mining the mode of its commencement, I made the following ob- servations. Observation 1. All the crusts were removed from the head of a boy, labouring under the disease, by the application of poul- tices. In a few days the scalp was quite clean, presenting here and there, anteriorly, patches about the size of half-a-crown, de- prived of hair. In these bald portions of the scalp, the skin looked somewhat injected and glossy on the surface; but there was no pain on pressure, no abrasion on the skin, or other symp- tom of inflammation or local lesion. The disease was now allow- ed to take its natural course, and I watched its development daily. In two days, minute pustules were observed to be thinly scattered over the surface, the contents of which, when examined under the microscope, were found to consist of normal pus. In two days more, the number of pustules had considerably increas- ed, and those formerly observed had become larger. I surround- ed several of the latter with a ring of ink, in order that there might be no difficulty in following the changes they underwent, and distinguishing them from others. In another day two of the pustules under observation broke, and the matter exuded formed a scab, which, under the microscope, was found to be composed of epidermic scales, and irregular amorphous masses, without any trace of vegetable structure. In the interstices of these scabs, the scalp was covered with a furfuraceous desqua- mation, consisting only, as shown by the microscope, of epider- mic scales. On the sixth day the scabs were of a dirty yellow colour, but not of the peculiar tint or form of the porrigo crust. Only a few pustules remained, and the injected appearance of the skin was gone. On the tenth day, the head was covered with irregular agglomerated scabs, similar to those produced from impetigo. The furfuraceous desquamations also continued. On the twelfth day, I detected, for the first time, at the pos- terior part of the scalp, where the hair was most abundant, small bright yellow spots, the size of a pin s head, somewhat de- pressed below the surface. On removing one of these spots with