Occupational affections of the skin ; a brief account of the trade processes and agents which give rise to them.

  • White, Robert Prosser, 1855-1934.
Date:
1915
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Occupational affections of the skin ; a brief account of the trade processes and agents which give rise to them. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    and subpapillary layers, with slowing of the blood-current and exudation of the leucocytes and plasma/' The leucocytes in- filtrate the immediate lymphatic spaces and, by positive chemotaxis they and the plasma are attracted towards the irritant. The intensity of the irritant and the poisonous pro- ducts eliminated by the epidermal cells influence largely the relative proportion of plasma and of leucocytes. When the leucocytes break up, a ferment is produced which causes a deposition of fibrin from the plasma, with the formations of a serous exudate. The amount of exudation depends upon the intensity of the irritant. The exudation dilutes the irritant, and the fibrin limits the diseased area. The leucocytes are finely granular oxyphiles, with multipartite nuclei of irregular shape. If the irritation is more severe, the corium is affected, proliferation takes place of the connective tissue cells proper, and the cells of the walls of the blood-vessels. This fixed cell proliferation and exudation of leucocytes and plasma accounts for the swelling. A more persistent type of oedema, with the appearance of indurated lesions resulting from prolonged irritation, points to the presence of Unna's plasma cells. Fatty degeneration and connective tissue hyperplasia are sequels to either prolonged or excessive causes of irritation/' Heyde and Vogt1 consider that the absorption of burnt or damaged tissue acts as a f foreign albumin,' and produces a state of hypersensibility, ' an anaphylactic reaction.' Burnt tissue absorbed by, or injected into, the system causes gastro- intestinal hyperasmia, lessened coagulability of the blood, and leucopenia. Trade irritants, though usually less severe, act in the same way, and this is strongly supported by Macleod's statement: That the fibrin, formed by the death of the leucocytes, is equal in amount, whether the destruction of the skin is due to a burn, or to some chemical agent. To this absorption, small or great, must be attributed the pathological explana- 1 Zeit8chr.f. d. gesamte experimen. Med., 1913, No. 1, p. 59.
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