Volume 2

The student's book of cutaneous medicine and diseases of the skin / by Erasmus Wilson.

Date:
1864-1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The student's book of cutaneous medicine and diseases of the skin / by Erasmus Wilson. 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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    nearly one-half, have been in existence more than ten years; twenty-eight had lasted between ten and twenty years, and fourteen between twenty years and fifty-seven. Cause.—Alphos is due to an innate tendency or diathesis; and the diathesis in many instances is hereditary. It occurs pretty equally in males and females; and is met with at all periods of life, from the age of three to eighty years. In its origin it is most frequent at puberty, twenty-three in one hundred cases beginning between ten and sixteen ; and it is remarkable, that in examples of hereditity, where the chil¬ dren are numerous, ranging from four to ten in one family, the number afflicted with this disease rarely exceeds two; in three, families of ten each, the number of children attacked with alphos was three in one, and two in the others ; while in three families of six and seven children, only one in each was the subject of this disease. In refer¬ ence to predisposing causes, we have little evidence; four examples in one hundred cases were traceable to a consump¬ tive stock; two to a gouty source; and one to the marriage of near relations ; while in the same number, the exciting causes, arranged in order of frequency, were as follows :— rubeola, scarlatina, parturition, over-study, over-nursing, de¬ velopment of menses, bad or insufficient diet, rapid growth, exposure to cold while heated, climate, fever, ansemia, cessation of menses, overheating the body, sea-bathing, and debility caused by syphilis. It is curious, however, to note, that one case was cured by an attack of measles. Alphos is greatly influenced by seasons, being worst in the winter, and clearing away in the summer; it commonly begins to appear or increase in the autumn; but exceptional cases are occasionally met with, wherein the eruption is worst in the spring and summer. Prognosis.—The prognostics as to cure are most unsatis¬ factory. Alphos may disappear after a few years, but it is equally likely to last a lifetime; and no difference is perceiv¬ able whether the disease be independent or hereditary in its