Diseases of the skin : a handbook for students and practitioners.

  • Walsh, David.
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Diseases of the skin : a handbook for students and practitioners. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Gerstein Science Information Centre at the University of Toronto, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Gerstein Science Information Centre, University of Toronto.

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    glossy skin, of some forms of hydroa and pemphigus, which may reasonably be referred to disturbances of the nervous system. It seems, however, a little wide of the mark to classify under neuroses of the skin a long list of maladies including such differing conditions as those of urticaria, urticaria pigmentosa, all forms of erythema (inclusive of erythema intertrigo, erythema scarlatiniforme, bedsore), frost- other conditions, some of which are plainly open to alter- native and simpler pathological explanations. The neurotic theory is advanced by authorities of such eminence that it is impossible to doubt there must be some ground for their belief, and that may perhaps be found in the fact that the nervous system is intimately connected with every tissue of the skin down to its ultimate epidermal cells. It is im- possible to conceive any pathological process affecting the skin in which nerves are not implicated, and to that extent it would be warrantable to describe any cutaneous affec- tion as a neurosis. It may be argued that the tendency of my own observations is to substitute the circulatory for the nervous system as the chief predisposing and contributory factor in a wide class of dermatoses. In answer to that criticism it might be said that the conclusions as to the implication of the circulation are based upon demonstrable pathological cardiac conditions, whereas, on the other hand, in spite of the length of time during which the theory of nervous origin has been advanced by men of authority, the amount of precise pathological proof of associated changes in the nervous system is of the scantiest. I have heard a sound dermatologist state that he had often seen rashes follow a wound of the skin, and express his opinion that the rash was due to absorption of some irritant which acted on the nervous system. Why a symptomatic rash of that kind should need the intervention of the nerves is not clear. The irritant is in the blood, and demands excretion from the body. Whatever channel of exit it may select will be more or less inflamed according to its potency. In other