Eczema, its nature and treatment : and, incidentally, the influence of constitutional conditions on skin diseases : being the Lettsomian lectures for the session 1869-70, delivered before the Medical Society of London / by Tilbury Fox.

  • Fox, William Tilbury, 1836-1879.
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Eczema, its nature and treatment : and, incidentally, the influence of constitutional conditions on skin diseases : being the Lettsomian lectures for the session 1869-70, delivered before the Medical Society of London / by Tilbury Fox. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    thesis in infantile eczema because the strumous diathesis is in operation in the disease, but it is as a modifying agency. We fail to observe those facts which go to prove that eczema may originate in the skin and yet be modified by general conditions. The occurrence of an eczema without there being a diathesis, in the ordinary sense of that word, is not more difficult to comprehend than is that of an extensive bronchitis or muco-enteritis. One word as to “ syphilitic ” eczema in infants. There are certain instances of pretty general and obstinate eczema in young children, in which there is not much discharge, not much crusting, but swelling, more or less induration and scaliness, sometimes dark scabs, accompanied by a dirty or actually pigmented state of skin, and often what looks like a pityriasis, with slight puckering about the corners of the mouth. Now and then there are patches of eczema nummulare about the belly, and coincident intestinal irritation, but apparently nothing else. These cases do not improve under the usual treatment for infantile eczema. They get well under anti-syphilitic treatment— at least the use of mercurials. There is often a history of syphilis to be found in the parents. The cases referred to do not arise out of a regular attack of congenital syphilis. Now, the fact that the bichloride of mercury cures them is not positive proof of their syphilitic nature, for it may be that, as in chronic eczema with induration, the remedy controls and alters the tissue-changes. I look upon these as instances, not of syphilitic eczema, but of eczema occurring in and modified by the syphilitic diathesis. It may be well to make particular reference to the influence of teething in eczema. I find Hebra saying that “great abuse is made of the teething of children, as of their temperaments; and just as every cough, colic, fever, diarrhoea, cramp, or fit in an infant is put down to teething, so eczema -is ascribed to the same cause when it occurs at this period. And although,” he continues, “ I by no means ignore the influence which this physiological process is capable of exerting upon the whole of the
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