Pathology and treatment of diseases of the skin : for practitioners and students / by Moriz Kaposi ; translation of the last German edition, under the supervision of, James C. Johnston.

Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pathology and treatment of diseases of the skin : for practitioners and students / by Moriz Kaposi ; translation of the last German edition, under the supervision of, James C. Johnston. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    conditions of the skin are found, however, in the Greek medical writings, even as early as Hippocrates, the contemporary of Socrates and Plato (470-370 B.C.)- Thus the names iS,avBrjfj.ara (from CLvBoi, bloom ; iSavdsiv, to bloom, efflorescere—skin efflorescences) and exOu^ara and ejidtXara for eruptions, spots, and skin dis- eases generally, were used in a general way, just as the modern expressions are used by the physicians and laity of to-day. Further, cpu^xara, q}vyBdka, repixivdoi, iniyuKTii, ocvdpaB are used for prominent or inflammatory swellings of the skin ; 'Keixijv, XoTioi, \sTtpa, niTvpiaaii, ipoopai for dry diseases of the skin char- acterized by exfoliation of the epidermis, sometimes accompanied by itching; while Kvrjopioi and Hvi6a)ffi5 are used for itching and burn- ing of the skin ; idpc^a for sweat blisters (sudamina) ; (pXtxraivat, q)\v2,uKia, il^vSpauia, dx^^P^?, xjjplov, 7ro/xq)ol, for vesicles, bullae, and eruptions associated with moisture or crust formation; spntji, saOiajj-ero?, and for peripherally spreading, so-called ser- piginous, superficial or more deeply penetrating skin affections; aXq)os, XevKt] pieXa?, e(^;7Az(Jf? for color changes and pigment anoma- lies of the skin; piadlffies, jdaddpoaffi?, and aXGOTreula for the dif- ferent forms of diseases accompanied by loss of hair ; aHpoxopdcov, ccHpodv^iov, }xvppir]Kiai, iovOoi for warts and pimples; epvaiTTsXa?, cpayedatva, yayypaiva, ipvQi^fxara, nsrixioci for processes called even to-day by similar names ; x^ipdSe? for scrofulous swellings. It is not to be doubted that while Hippocrates regarded certain more or less important diseases of the skin as independent or idio- pathic affections, others, which he designates as abscesses, he considered the result of certain inward maladies or expressions of failing general health or a febrile state. He speaks of the so-called critical eruptions with which febrile diseases end, and believes that eruptions disappear spontaneously or as a result of treatment of the inner organs, and by their disappearance may cause these to become affected ; that, vice versa, certain excretions and depletions—a hsemorrhoidal flux, for instance—may free one from certain skin dis- eases. Finally, theories are not wanting in regard to the causes of skin diseases, the idea being that the accepted humors were a factor in producing some skin affections, and that the season of the year, the state of the weather, the direction of the wind, or the age and sex of the individual exerted an influence upon others. After Hippocrates, whose writings furnished the basis of medical studies for a thousand years longer, Cornelius Celsus deserves promi- nent notice on account of the attention he paid to skin diseases. This indisputably most objective of the ancient medical writers, who lived in Rome from 53 B.C. to 7 A.D., and who about 18 B.C. pub- lished his medical work of eight books, still worth reading to-day, gives in the third, fifth, and sixth books a tolerably correct and sys-