Eight cases of melanosis : with pathological and therapeutical remarks on that disease / by William Norris.

  • Norris, William.
Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Eight cases of melanosis : with pathological and therapeutical remarks on that disease / by William Norris. 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.

    11/14 (page 11)
    In a few months he died : no post mortem could be obtained; no melanotic deposits could be found on the skin; he died within six months from the first appearance of disease. I attended a child, 4 years old, who died from fungus hasmatodes in the eye, and the mother attributed it to a blow from a spoon; and this poor unfortunate youth attributed his awful disease to the same cause. This is an unusual case, occurring in a youth fifteen years of age. The mass of disease was unusually large, and more like fungus h^matodes. I think the disease would extend to the brain, and some of the vital organs would probably have been found diseased with pure melanosis, though it appeared externally more like a mixed case of fungus hasmatodes and melanosis. Case 5. A gentleman, cetat 80, consulted me with a large scirrhous tumour in the breast; he had received a severe blow on the part twenty years before; it progressively increased, and around several blue-looking tubera arose, the size of large gi’apes, not round, but oval and flat. lie did not suflfer that lancinating pain peculiar to cancer, and died in about two years after the first appearance of the tumour. The constitution did not appear to suflFer much from the local malady, and he appeared to sink more from old age. This case illustrates the occurrence of pure scirrhus of the breast in very advanced life, with secondary deposits like melanosis on the skin. Case 6. I had a patient, a woman nearly 40 years of age, in good health, with a tumour the size of a pea, growing near the lower part of the caruncula lachrymalia, so black that she believes there is a small portion of coal in it. It hangs by a slender pedicle, and has existed several years. She has no deposits on any part of the body, and appears to be in good health. Case 7* Mr. R., oetat 68, a farmer at Clent, near this town, one of the healthiest villages in the county, had a scirrhous tumour on the cheek : it continued to grow for a year and a half, and became a perfectly black mass; was ulcerated on its surface, and freely bled occasionally; several black tubera formed around it. He died within two years, with great debility, and his medical attendant told me he thought the frequent hsemorrhage hastened his death. This is the only case that I have met with occurring in a rural dis- trict, and, to use the words of his brother, “ he was a desperate smoker.” Case 8. A man, mat 55, had hundreds of small dark tubera, the colour of a damson, scattered over his leg, and eventually died. This man resided about two miles from this town, at Brierly Hill, one of the most smoky iron districts in England. The case was related to me by Mr. Gutteridge, of Birmingham, who had been consulted as to the propriety of removing the limb. The man died without an operation, and no post mortem was obtained. ’’