Notes on psoriasis / by R.W. Taylor.

  • Taylor, Robert W. (Robert William), 1842-1908.
Date:
[1882]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on psoriasis / by R.W. Taylor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    1/8 (page 3)
    NOTES ON PSORIASIS.1 BY R. W. TAYLOR, M.D., Surgeon to Charity Hospital, New York. IN this brief paper I wish to call attention to an old and unaccepted view as to the etiology of psoriasis and to offer some conclusions as to its prognosis and treatment. No point in its history is more obscure than its etiology, since most articles written on the subject tell us what are not its causes, and none of them what they are. Long ago I was struck with the suggestion made by Erasmus Wilson, that psoriasis is “ a mani¬ festation of the syphilitic poison after transmission through at least one, and perhaps several generations.” At the time I was inclined to ridicule the view, as indeed did most dermatologists, and it has since gained no upholders. I was inclined in those days to think that syphilis always showed itself in, and caused by transmission, definite and specific lesions. Larger experience and study have shown me, as well of course as others, that it may lead to lesions of nutrition, or, as they may be called, sequelae, which are not specific in appearance or nature. With the view entertained by Wilson impressed on my mind, a dozen or so years ago, I began to observe for myself. In every case where it was possible, I collected facts as to the medical history of patients, of their brothers and sisters, of the parents of the patient, and as far as I could, about the grand-parents. Be it distinctly understood, I began the inquiry as a doubter and not anxious in any degree to confirm Wilson’s theory. I will not inflict on the members a tiresome series of cases, but will give the general facts drawn from careful observation. But there will be nothing stated, let it be distinctly understood, which has not been observed and carefully weighed. Let me say right here that, in many cases, I could get no trust¬ worthy information of the condition of the parents, in others where I could get a reliable history of them, I failed to convince myself that one or both had suffered from syphilis, but again, in fully twenty-five per cent of the cases, I convinced myself indubitably that one of the parents had been syphilitic. In the greater number of my cases, the father gave a history of syphilis, in a small proportion the mother had been infected. In none of these parents was the disease in an active stage, the infection having taken place from five to fifteen years before the birth of the child. Some of them had suffered severely; others had had mild attacks of syphilis, and strange to say, in all of them the lesions of the integu¬ ment and mucous membranes had been the most prominent symptoms. In but one case had manifestations of the disease been present in the 1 Read at the sixth annual meeting of the American Dermatological Society, at Newport, R. I., August 30, 1882.