Kraurosis vulvæ : a disease of chronic inflammatory nature and characterized by cutaneous atrophy, with marked shrinking and contraction of the vaginal orifice / by J.M. Baldy and H.L. Williams.

Baldy, J. M. (John Montgomery), 1860-1934

Date:: [1899]

Credit: Kraurosis vulvæ : a disease of chronic inflammatory nature and characterized by cutaneous atrophy, with marked shrinking and contraction of the vaginal orifice / by J.M. Baldy and H.L. Williams. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$KRAUROSIS VULViE :* 53 \J v V> A DISEASE OF CHRONIC INFLAMMATORY NATURE AND CHARACTERIZED BY CUTANEOUS ATROPHY, WITH MARKED SHRINKING AND CONTRACTION OF THE VAGINAL ORIFICE. By J. M. Baldy, M.D., PROFESSOR OF GYNECOLOGY IN THE PHILADELPHIA POLYCLINIC; GYNECOLOGIST TO THE PENNSYLVANIA AND GYNECEAN HOSPITALS, ETC., AND H. L. Williams, M.D., INSTRUCTOR IN GYNECOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA ; PATHOLOGIST TO THE GYNE¬ COLOGICAL DEPARTMENT IN THE LABORATORY OF THE PHILADELPHIA POLYCLINIC, AND ATTENDANT PHYSICIAN TO THE MATERNITY HOSPITAL, PHILADELPHIA. This exceedingly interesting and fortunately rather rare disease was first brought prominently to the attention of the medical profession by the classical article of Breisky,4 published in 1885, in which he described at length twelve cases, and presented a clinical description of the con dition which can scarcely be improved upon at the present day. Ten years before that time, in 1875, Dr. Robert F. Weir,1 of New York, described, under the name of ichthyosis, a condition of the vulva which, in its clinical characteristics, closely resembled kraurosis. Law- son Tait2 seems to have noticed cases of a similar nature at about the same period that the article of Weir first appeared, which he then de¬ scribed as “ serpiginous vascular degeneration of the nymphse.” But it was not until the observation of Breisky4 that the disease was first looked upon as a distinct entity, apart from pruritus and the not un¬ common senile atrophy of the vulva. Clinically, the picture of this disease is most striking. The first symptoms noticed are usually those characteristic of pruritus, which consist of an intense and more or less progressive itching and burn¬ ing of the vulva. In some cases the affected tissue is excessively hyper¬ plastic and dyspareunia develops early. The skin is frequently dis¬ colored, and small red spots appear on the surface. Some time after these symptoms are noticed a peculiar shrinking of the superficial tissue of the vulva begins to take place. Discolored spots appear which are hypersesthetic. The skin becomes dry and whitened, and often covered with a rough and thick epidermis. The disease may be unilateral or circumscribed, but usually the tissues of the labia majora, the nymphse, the area about the clitoris and urinary meatus all become more or less involved, while the skin about the anus is frequently affected. As the disease advances the small labia . J * Read before the meeting of the American Gynecological Society, May, 1889.$