A practical compendium of the diseases of the skin, including a particular consideration of the more frequent and intractable forms of these affections; with cases / By Jonathan Green.

  • Jonathan Green
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical compendium of the diseases of the skin, including a particular consideration of the more frequent and intractable forms of these affections; with cases / By Jonathan Green. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    scrofulous eruptions, scales, spots, rashes, &c., were the most definite terms employed when speaking of this class of-complaints, certainty as to the species of disease described was unattainable, and progress in the knowledge of its nature and mode of cure im¬ possible. The first point to be considered in each particular case is, the class of elementary lesion to which it belongs ; in other words, to discover whether the eruption be exanthematous, vesicular, pus¬ tular, &c. This being done, the symptoms, progress, and appear¬ ance of the species under consideration, must then be contrasted with the small number of such affections as show themselves under the same, though variously modified, generic characters. When the elementary forms remain untouched, and the eruption has not passed its height, there is little difficulty in assigning to a particular case its proper place in the system, under the guidance of experience, in selecting the plan of treatment most likely to prove of avail, and in foreseeing the probable term and issue of the disease. But when the malady has existed for some time, and the original inflammatory form has given place to new and consecutive alterations, the case is very different, and the diagnosis is difficult in proportion to the extent and variety of these changes. Never¬ theless, the consequences of the affection, the scabs or crusts, fur- furas or scales, sores and cicatrices, to which it gives rise, frequently prove indices of what the primary nature of the affection was ; and further, it very rarely happens but that some traces of the elementary form of the disease may be discovered in the circumference of the place last affected. When it happens that several elementary forms are discovered in the same or nearly the same situations, one will always be found predominating, and this, together with the pre¬ vious history, always enables us to conclude which is to be held the principal affection, which the accidental malady that must be attached to the other as a complication. From this, it appears that the secondary consequences of the diseases of the skin, the appearances and forms of scabs, squamas, ulcers, cicatrices, &c., are points in the history of these diseases by no means to be overlooked. These, together with due attention to the seat of the eruption, to its progress, its colour, and general cha¬ racters, are so many data that lead the practised eye to unerring conclusions in regard to its actual nature. The treatment pursued in cutaneous diseases, the true end and aim of all preliminary study of their characters, has necessarily partaken of the obscurity that has hitherto prevailed, and that still prevails, in regard to their nature. I have already hinted at the fact that a similar routine is indiscriminately followed in almost every one of these affections; in France a course of bitters and, sulphur, in England one of mercury (in one or other of the infinite variety of forms into which it has been tortured by ingenuity) and of purgatives, are the approved and universally received specifics ; it matters not that disappointment again and again attends the pre¬ scription of these medicines; the mind familiarised with a notion
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