On erysipelas and its treatment by perchloride of iron / by William Pirrie.

  • William Pirrie
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On erysipelas and its treatment by perchloride of iron / by William Pirrie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and tender to the touch, assumes a dark reddish colour, and becomes perceptibly swollen. The part feels dis¬ tended and stiff, the redness and swelling gradually increase ; and in doing so, they maintain a distinct and slightly elevated margin. In some instances, the inflam¬ mation remains wonderfully circumscribed, confining itself to the face ; but in most cases it advances with steady and often rapid progress, until the whole of the face and scalp, and sometimes the neck and upper parts of the shoulders, are involved in the disease. The coun¬ tenance becomes hideously disfigured ; the nose often enormously swollen ; the eyes closed from effusion into the eyelids; the lips very large and prominent; the face in general much increased in size; and the scalp swollen, sometimes hard, and sometimes puffy and boggy to the feeling. The course of erysipelas varies greatly on dif¬ ferent occasions. In some instances the inflammation is quite superficial. The surface remains unbroken, and after the redness has lasted for three or four days and then gradually disappeared along with the swelling, it becomes the seat of a profuse desquamation. But on most occasions the consequences are more serious; the cuticle becomes raised' by numerous miliary vesicles or blisters, from which an exudation takes place that con¬ cretes into scabs or crusts; the subjacent surface con¬ tinues to exude an acrid lymph; or the inflammatory action penetrates deep into the subjacent areolar tissue, giving rise to suppuration or sloughing of the tissue. According as one or other of these courses is observed,