Alopecia / by Edward Wigglesworth.

  • Wigglesworth, Edward, 1840-1896.
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Alopecia / by Edward Wigglesworth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    and glycerin, shows the hau* pi'eserved by stimulation, push- ing on^Yards again, cai'rying upwards the fattily degenerated point of atrophy, the part below this smaller than normal, from the pressure of the root-sheaths not as yet wholly re- sisted, and the bulb much shrunken, its newly-formed cells going to supply the growing hair. Wilson* gives four cases of Alopecia areata following nervous derangement, and adds, how monstrous it appears to the genuine pathologist to talk of a parasitic fungus in connection with the phenomena now described, or to entertain a mere suspicion of conta- gion ! and on the next page he speaks of the heredity of Alopecia areata as a sufficient answer to the follies of the fungus theory, the crowning absurdity of a mikrosporon audouini, and cites a case of two young ladies, sisters,f whose uncle also sulFers occasionally in a similar manner, while his father before him was afflicted with the same an- noyance. Such recurrences of the disease, as well as the relapses during treatment, certainly point to depraved ner\'e force rather than to spores. The treatment of Alopecia areata is necessarily confined . to nervous and nutritive tonics in general. To these we may add various local stimulants to amuse the j)atient until *«« the disease chooses to disappear. These are the ethereal oils or stimulating alkaloids dissolved in alcohol. Tincture of aconite, of cantharides or of capsicum, from ten grains to half a drachm, may be used in an ounce of alcohol plus a small amount of some ethereal oil. Or we may employ car- bolic acid one drachm, alcohol six ounces, glycerin one ounce, well mixed. Whichever is used, it should be ap- plied twice daily to the bald spots and their immediate neigh- borhood by means of a stiff, small brush, and the applica- * Journal of Cutaneous Medicine, vol. iii., No. 9, p. 100. t Now under treatment, April, 1869.