The head and neck / by F.A. Southam.

  • Southam, F. A.
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The head and neck / by F.A. Southam. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    Acqmred 'Iv.movrs. pea to an orange, often multiple, and in many cases hereditary, without pulsation and non-reducible, are sebaceous, cutaneous, dermoid cysts or wens. The skin covering them is unaffected, but on attempting to raise it from the tumour a slight dimpling is often observed, and a black point is sometimes present on the summit of the tumour, indicating the opening of a hair follicle, and showing that the tumour was formed by the ob- struction of the duct of a sebaceous gland. In other cases, when no such dimpling or obstruction of a follicle is apparent, the tumour is probably a new formation of a cystic nature, developed in the skin. The contents of the cyst consist of sebaceous matter, more or less inspissated, mixed with epidermal scales, and not unfrequently crystals of cholesterine are also present. The acquired form of sebaceous tumour differs from the congenital (3) in its more superficial situation, always being developed in connection with the skin, and lying above the occipito-frontalis or its aponeurosis. Tun^atincr Seba- A.S the rcsult of some irritation, the skin over a seba- ceous cyst may ulcerate and give way, and the contents of the tumour having discharged themselves externally, an irregular growth, consisting of exuberant granula- tions, may spring from the internal surface of the cyst- wall, and presenting itself externally as a fungating vascular mass, may simulate very closely an epithelio- matous ulcer of the scalp (15). The diagnosis may be made by attention to the history of the case, viz. by the previous existence of a tumour, probably for some length of time, having all the characteristics of a sebaceous cyst; also by the absence of any infiltration of the margins of the open- ing, as would be the case in an epitheliomatous ulcer.