The hygiene of the skin, or, The art of preventing skin diseases / by A. Ravogli.

Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The hygiene of the skin, or, The art of preventing skin diseases / by A. Ravogli. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    under this name of herpes to describe pustular and ulcera- tive eruptions. Lorry and Plenk did not change their views, and* under the name of herpes grouped many different skin diseases. Willan applied the name of herpes to several affections con- sisting of vesicular eruption, as Herpes zoster and labialis. But Willan found an opponent in Alibert, who established a large class of skin diseases under the name of Dartres, with the different families of Herpes furfuraceus, Herpes squa- mosus, Herpes crustaceus, Herpes exedens, Herpes pustu- losis, Herpes phlyctenoides, Herpes erythemoides. Many authors, as Rayer, Cazenave, Chausit, Wilson, Fox, Hebra, followed the views of Willan, limiting the mean- ing of herpes to a certain vesicular skin affection localized. Other authors followed Alibert, comprehending under the name of Herpetes, Dartres, Tettres, about all the chronic skin diseases. In order to assign a cause for this big class of eruptions, several authors established a peculiar diathesis which they called Herpetic Diathesis, Herpetismus. Bazin gives the characters of the individual affected with the herpetic diathesis, which he believes the most efficient eause of the several eruptions included among the herpetic diseases. We can not agree with the views of Bazin, and we are obliged to object to the idea of herpetismus. This is an imaginary diathesis, which was never proved, and was only proposed so as to explain the unknown by the unknown. It was very handy for the physicians not well acquainted with the skin affections to persuade the patient that he had herpetic disease, that he ought to take sulphur internally to drive out of his system the bad blood. The patient was satisfied that the eruption was a benefit to him, and he was afraid to cure his eruption, which would otherwise go back into the organism and attack vital organs. Wrong observa- tions supported the theory of the metastasis; for cases of eczema in a man affected with a severe pneumonia or with typhoid fever have disappeared in the acme of the acute a