Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1878 edition. Excerpt: ...have been recorded of psoriasis gyrata are to be accounted for in this way. Those who hold this view, however, profess themselves unable even by this means fully to account for the phenomenon, and accordingly discredit the pictorial representations that have been published of it; but so gratuitous a breach of faith as an imaginary pathological illustration is scarcely conceivable, and I myself entertain a more possible explanation of the accident. It happens that when a person is affected with psoriasis the application of a sufficient irritant to an as yet unaffected portion of the skin is capable of determining the appearance of a fresh patch, corresponding in shape to the portion of previously sound skin that may thus be irritated. For example, I have had occasion to observe the effect of a mustard poultice acting in this way. A man affected with psoriasis who was an in-patient of one of the large general hospitals of London was so frequently stripped in the winter time, in order that his disease might be demonstrated to the students, that he contracted a severe bronchitis. For this complication he was treated amongst other remedies by the application of a mustard poultice. Tbe poultice was applied in the evening and he fell asleep with the poultice on him. During the night it slipped down his chest on to his belly. The poultice was of an oval shape and had been applied crossways over the chest, but when it finally came to a rest on his belly its position was a slanting one. Hitherto the man's chest and belly had been completely free from psoriasis, but very speedily two large well-defined patches of the disease developed themselves, the one on his chest and the other on his belly. Each of the two patches corresponded precisely in size...