Diseases of the skin : an outline of the principles and practice of dermatology / by Malcolm Morris.

  • Morris, Malcolm Alexander, Sir, 1849-1924.
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Diseases of the skin : an outline of the principles and practice of dermatology / by Malcolm Morris. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    their presence. Fresh crops, however, may continue to appear, and the attack may last for some days. In some cases the eruption comes out in successive crops day after day, for weeks or months or even years.* To this form of urticaria the term “ chronic ” is usually applied; but as there is no difference in respect of the severity of the local symptoms between it and the more common short-lived vai’iety [urticaria fugax) which has ah'eady been described, it would be more logical to call it iirticaria perstans. In certain cases not only the duration of the disease but that of the individual wheal is considerably prolonged. Cases of this kind have been reported in which wheals on the limbs, the back, and the belly, varying in size from a lentil to a haricot bean, persisted for three months.f Urticaria may attack any part of the cutaneous surface, and sometimes invades the mucous membranes of the mouth, tongue, pharynx, possibly of the bronchi and stomach (Pringle). This probably affords an explanation of its frequent association with asthma, the same causes determining an attack of both affec- tions. The wheals have no definite arrangement, and are never symmetrical. There may be only a few on some particular part of the body, or they may cover nearly the whole of its surface. A striking feature of urticaria when it has obtained a hold on the patient is that the lightest contact with the clothing or the least scratch will at once bring out a crop of wheals on any part of the skin ; even when the rash is not present the patient can often write his name with his finger-nails on apparently healthy parts of his skin, especially on the back (urticaria factitia). | * Dubreuilh ; Gaz. des H6'p., October 22nd, 1892. f C. Boeck : Norsk Magazin for Laeg., 1888. X This condition has been thoroughly studied by Barthdlemy in his £tude sur le Dermographisme, vol. i., Paris, 1893. See also the case of a “Femme Autographique” (Kaposi, translated by Besnier and Doyon, p. 407-8).