On the therapeutic value of oil and water in the treatment of skin diseases / by John Hughes Bennett, M.D.

  • Bennett, John Hughes, 1812-1875.
Date:
[cbetween 1800 and 1899?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the therapeutic value of oil and water in the treatment of skin diseases / by John Hughes Bennett, M.D. 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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    ON THE THERAPEUTIC VALUE OF OIL AND WATER IN THE TREATMENT OF SKIN DISEASES. BY JOHN HUGHES BENNETT, M.D., F.E.S.E. Professor of the Institutes of Medicine^ and Senior Professor of Glinical Medicine in the University of Edinburgh. The skin^ as is well known, is furnished with two kinds of glands for the purpose of keeping it soft and pliable—viz. sebaceous and sudoriparous glands. While the excretions they pour forth serve other important purposes among the general uses of the economy, there can be little doubt that they have a special action on the skin itself. Further, their diminution or suppression is a circumstance that materially influences the progress of various diseases which attack this important organ. Observation has induced me to believe that there are some of these which more especially affect the oily, whilst others injure the watery secretion. For example, prurigo, lichen, and the scaly diseases are accompanied by dryness of the skin, whilst eczema and impetigo are accompanied by excessive moisture of the surface. Be this as it may, experience has convinced me that there is a class of skin disorders which are readily cured by applying oil or grease constantly to the surface, whilst there is another class which require a similar application of water. Moreover, I believe, although innumerable ointments and lotions have long been employed in cutaneous diseases, that the active agents in all of them, with few exceptions, are not the drugs which they hold in suspension or solution, but simply the oily or watery matters which constitute the bases of these pre- parations. The establishment of this doctrine, and the careful discrimination of the diseases or textural alterations whicli.