An account of some diseases of the toes and fingers with observations on their treatment / James Wardrop.

  • Wardrop, James.
Date:
1814
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An account of some diseases of the toes and fingers with observations on their treatment / James Wardrop. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    The first of these diseases which is here to be considered, is where inflammation and suppuration take place in the soft parts contiguous to the nail, generally denominated, the growth of the nail into thejlesh. This affection is chiefly confined to the great toe. It frequently happens, when the foot is kept in a tight shoe, that the soft parts contiguous to the edge of the nail thicken, are pressed over it, and become more or less inflamed and painful. If the inflam- mation and thickening of the soft parts increase, the edge of the nail becomes at last completely Imbedded in them, and its sharp edge, from the pressure of the body when resting on the foot, increases the inflammation, and ultimately produces suppuration. Thus the hard and sharp nail by pressing on the surface which has become ulcerated, causes great pain and lameness, and in many cases prevents the person from walking. The ulceration generally extends round a considerable part of the nail, and a fungus arises from the surface of the ulcer accompanied by excessive irritability. All those authors who have taken notice of this affection have considered a peculiarity in the growth or In the formation of the nail as the cause of the disease in the soft parts. The different modes of treatment therefore which have been proposed, are directed to remedy this supposed deformity of the nail. Some direct, that the edge of the nail which is pressed in upon the tender soft parts should be raised, by placing underneath it a piece of tin-plate.