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.

    37/264 (page 297)
    persons, whom it usually attacks, is unmistakeable; on the limbs and trunk of the body it may be taken for tubercular syphiloderma or alphos. Youth, the presence of a strumous diathesis, and the absence of sore throat and other signs of syphilis, decide the question in favour of lupus. We have seen lupus non exedens on the limbs, occurring in circular patches of about an inch in dia¬ meter, strangely like alphos in appearance; but the origin was different,—a pustule or small abscess; and if a portion of the patch have undergone spontaneous cure, there will be the decisive evidence of a cicatrix in lupus and the absence of any morbid alteration of the skin in alphos. Lupus erythematosus is distinguished from all other affections of the skin by its maintenance of a circumscribed erythematous form; its obstinate persistence; the atrophy of the surface of the skin that ensues; its sordid appearance; and the presence of a permanent cicatrix in parts that have healed. It is comparatively a rare affection. Cause.—The cause of scrofuloderma and lupus is the strumous diathesis, whether hereditary or accidental. Prognosis.—Scrofuloderma and lupus are remarkable for their obstinacy, frequently resisting treatment, and lasting many years, or for life; and even when the sequel is favour¬ able, leaving behind them indelible cicatrices, and often considerable deformity, as where the face and nose are attacked and the latter more or less destroyed by absorption or ulceration. Treatment.—In strumous affections in general, great at¬ tention must be paid to diet. There is commonly weak nu¬ tritive power and defective assimilation and sanguification ; hence our patients are fair in complexion, pallid, flabby in tissue, and more or less ansemic. The diet should consist of one-half or two-thirds animal food. Animal food should be taken at each meal, and with the addition at dinner and supper of beer, either ale or porter, according to the taste of the patient. In these disorders occurring in children,