On ichthyosis, with special reference to the particular forms in which it occurs / [J. Warburton Begbie].

  • James Warburton Begbie
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On ichthyosis, with special reference to the particular forms in which it occurs / [J. Warburton Begbie]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in question. The case, indeed, is adduced by Yander Wiel as an example of the power which the imagination exerts over the body, and specially in the instance of pregnant women. In the year 1683, says the author, a boy, about 10 years of age, by name Bernardus, and born in the kingdom of Naples, was seen at the Hague. The hands and feet, legs and arms, of this boy were covered with rough scales • also the whole body, the head alone being unaffected. His maternal aunt, under whose care he was, accounted for the occurrence of the deformity of the skin by the mother, when washing linen at the shore, having seen in the river many scaly animals and shell fishes, by which her imagination had been so occupied, that, not long afterwards becoming pregnant, the foetus acquired the character described. In this opinion Vander Wiel concurred; and he refers to other instances of a similar kind detailed by different authors. Those interested in the early history of ichthyosis should consult the writings of the physicians now named, as well as those referred to by Yander Wiel. In the treatise, ‘ De Medica Mirabili Historia/ of Marcellus Donatus,1 who lived in the preceding century, some interesting allusions to skin affections of the same nature will be found. I must pass, however, to a brief notice of more recent accounts. Plenck,2 of Vienna, the earliest to publish anything like a detailed cutaneous nosology, placed ichthyosis in the class of Squamae, the seventh in order of his arrangement, following in his definition the description of the disease offered by Sauvage in his ‘ General Nosological Method/ which had appeared some years previously. By Willan, writing in 1798, ichthyosis was placed in the sixth of the eight classes into which he divided cutaneous diseases; and in the same order, Squamm, it remained in the modification of Willan’s arrangement adopted subsequently by BatemaD. Alibert, in 1810, attempting to form his cutaneous nosography by grouping together diseases which pi’esented distinct analogies, made a sepa- rate class, “ Ichthyoses.” Into this he admitted many varieties dependent on a fancied resemblance to different fishes, or the barks of different trees. Some among the more recent classi- ficators of cutaneous diseases have apparently experienced much 1 A physician of Mantua, died in 1600. His work, referred to above, was- published at Mantua in 1586. - ‘ Doctrina de Morbis Cutaneis.’ 1783. See p. 89.