Manual of diseases of the skin / from the French of Cazenave and Schedel ; with notes and additions by Thomas H. Burgess.

Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Manual of diseases of the skin / from the French of Cazenave and Schedel ; with notes and additions by Thomas H. Burgess. 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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    it is strong. In some warm countries, for example, the habitual use of certain kinds of meat, particularly pork, contributed greatly to the spread of tubercular lepra and the Eliphantiasis Arabum, and hence the experience of Moses and Mahomet induced them to forbid the use of pork to Jews and Mussulmen. The restrictive laws concerning this article of diet were evidently founded on the rules of public health, and even as late as 1779, Baron Larrey witnessed the injurious effects of pork and salt food on the inhabit- ants of Egypt. In Scotland the use of oatmeal is commonly supposed to produce a nurhber of cutaneous diseases. The action on the skin of solid or liquid matters employed for food is well known, but this is peculiarly true of wine, coffee, salt, pepper, &c. when taken in excess. On the other hand, disease may be engen- dered by total abstinence of these stimulants; thus, the gutta rosea of water drinkers is cured by the use of stimulant fluids. Gangrenous affections are sometimes produced by the use of putrid meat, and it is well known how eruptions, resembling roseola and urticaria, are occasionally excited by copaiva, belladonna, &c. Many other facts, which prove the intimate connexion existing between the skin and stomach, are mentioned by authors, and Larrey in particular dwells upon this point. Excesses of diet may certainly act as exciting causes of diseases of the skin, but it is certain that at Paris, as elsewhere, bad food, poverty, and filth, are the most frequent causes of these affections. The copious perspiration produced by exercise, and the conse- quent excitement of the skin, show how powerfully it is influenced by the motions of the body. Hence long-continued fatigue is a powerful predisposing cause. On the other hand, Larrey affirms that rest never gives rise to any cutaneous malady. The want of rest likewise has much influence as an exciting cause, producing herpes, acne, erysipelas; and the same remark applies to grief, strong moral impressions, &c. The humoral pathologists attributed great influence in the pro- duction of cutaneous disorders to various derangements of secretion or excretion. The skin was regarded as the natural emunctory of every kind of humour which did not pass off in the usual way. The existence of any disease in the skin was considered as a proof