Diseases of the skin : their description, pathology, diagnosis, and treatment / by H. Radcliffe Crocker.

  • Crocker, H. Radcliffe (Henry Radcliffe), 1845-1909.
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Diseases of the skin : their description, pathology, diagnosis, and treatment / by H. Radcliffe Crocker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    171/786 (page 135)
    an inch or more in diameter. In every case of this kind, therefore, it is not enough to give the eruption a name, but the source of irritation must be carefully enquired for. Sometimes this cannot be discovered, on account of the irritant being no longer in opera- tion, the disease being kept up by auto-inoculation. The lesions can always be healed by the same treatment as that for I. con- tagiosa, but fresh ones may form if the source of irritation be not also removed. Since the eruption is most easily excited in delicate children, in the destitute poor, the dirty and cachectic, good food and hygiene, cod-liver oil, and iron are often important adjuncts to the treatment. POMPHOLYX. Deriv.—iro^oXv^, a bubble. Synonyms.—Cheiropompholyx (Hutchinson) ; Dysidrosis (Tilbury Fox). Definition.—A vesicular and bullous eruption limited to the hands and feet. This disease was described independently by Tilbury Fox and Hutchinson, originally from the same case. I have adopted the American name, as it does not assume any pathological theory. The disease is not a common one, and the more severe forms are rare, but I have seen a good many cases since Tilbury Fox first pointed out its characters to me. It is a disease that is seen chiefly in the summer, and is limited almost exclusively to the hands and feet, and while symmetrical in the main, one side is often worse than the other. The hands are always affected, while the feet often escape, and are seldom so bad as the hands. The eruption commences with burning and tingling, and development of deeply imbedded vesicles, singly or in groups, along the sides of the fingers and on the palms, but no part is exempt; in bad cases, the whole surface of the hands is affected. In the earliest stage, I have repeatedly verified Fox's observation, that small transparent rings of fluid are visible round the sweat orifices ; but this cannot be demonstrated, as they become larger, when they have been aptly compared to boiled sago grains imbedded in the skin; at the same time too much stress has been laid on this