Vicious circles in disease / by Jamieson B. Hurry.

  • Jamieson Boyd Hurry
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vicious circles in disease / by Jamieson B. Hurry. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Crusts. The crusts that are so frequently present in eczema sometimes serve a useful purpose by pro¬ tecting the delicate epidermis. At other times they prolong the morbid action by forming a reservoir in which pus collects. This pus, in its efforts to escape, further erodes the subjacent tissues and prolongs the malady, acting very much like an irritant foreign body. Eczema of Eye-Lid. Skin that has been attacked by eczema is apt to undergo contraction, and may thus establish morbid correlations. For example, eczema of the lower eye-lid often leads to eversion of the punctum lachrymale and to constant lacrymation, which in turn perpetuates the original lesion : “ When the position of the lid has thus been altered, the tears flow over the cheek, causing eczema, with thickening and excoriation of the skin, so that a Vicious Circle is set up , which tends always further and further to increase the deformity.” 1 Recurrent Eczema. An attack of eczema diminishes the power of resistance to a fresh attack, and thus paves the way for recurrence. Thus Hyde writes : “ Recovery, even when complete, leaves the patient, it should never be forgotten, with a skin sensitive to irritation and more prone to a fresh attack of the disease than one long virgin of an inflammatory process.” 2 1 Berry, Diseases of the Eye, p. 58.