A practical treatise on eczema and its treatment / by M.J. Rae.

Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical treatise on eczema and its treatment / by M.J. Rae. 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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    Different opinions are held by dermatologists as to the hereditary nature of eczema. Many regard it as hereditary, whilst Hebra and others are opposed to this view. Crocker thinks heredity has slight claims to be considered as a cause of the disease. The following are Tilbury Fox's views on the point:— But, on the whole, I do not think that, as far as clinical observa- tion goes at present, one can refuse, especially in cases where two or three or more members of a family are affected by eczema, and there is a history of the same disease in the parents, to allow that father or mother may have really handed down the affection to son or daughter. These cases would be considered by Hebra to prove that eczema in parents does not exclude its occurrence in their children. Hereditary disease is not invariably transmitted from parent to offspring. It may miss a generation and appear in the following one. It is well known that peculiarities of local form, as the nose or hand, of habits of thought and tricks of manner, may be handed down from parent to child, or even be transmitted to distant descendants without appearing in the intermediate ones. And this may partly explain the absence of a family history in some cases of eczema. As an additional proof of the heredity of eczema I have frequently observed it show itself in a manner, so far as I know, that has not been mentioned by medical authors —viz., to appear in the same variety and local form of the disease in members of the same family, as two brothers suffering from eczema of the upper lip, beard, or other part of the face, and even at the same time. I have also frequently observed a mother and daughter suffering from the same variety of eczema, and at a different or at the same time, the disease affecting the