The theory and classification of inflammations of the skin / by A. B. Buchanan, M.D.

  • Buchanan, Andrew Bogle.
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The theory and classification of inflammations of the skin / by A. B. Buchanan, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    INFLAMMATIONS OF THE SKIN. I HAVE long been of opinion tliat unnecessary difficulties are intro- duced into the study of many diseases of the skin, by a tendency to contemplate them as individual ixnities, while losing sight of their mutual relations. It does not do to fix too exactly the limits of particular diseases ; to force nature into accord with our ideas, instead of endeavouring truly to interpret her phenomena. It is, no doubt, very desirable that a clinical physician, or a student, should be able to say decidedly, this is such or such a disease ; and most of our books seem to have been wi'itten by men rather keenly alive to the advantages of rigorous definition. But all deviations on our part fi-om the interpretation of actual phenomena, though they may assist the beginner or the practical physician in some few cases, are just as sure to lead to worse confusion in others. It is far from rare for a study of seeming complications to result in simplifying, to an unexpected extent, subjects which they seemed at first only to embarrass; and nothing can better illustrate this tnith than the simplification which results from the study of cutaneous affections, both in their typical forms and in their forms of transition from one well-marked variety to another. Few things, for example, can be more confusing than to open the elaborate work of Devergie, and to read of the endless new species and compound affections enumerated by the learned author, as the result of his unwearied assiduity in one of the widest fields for observation in the world. One would imagine, at first sight, that the complexity of the study was increased in proportion to the number of novelties and compounds introduced by him into its nomenclature. On the con- trary, more careful research into the nature of such compounds proves them to be often mere stages of transition from what was previously considered one distinct disease to another, and shows that these new names, instead of encumbering the science by increasing the num- ber of its manifestations, ought to be regarded as conducing to its simplicity by doing away with distinctions whicli liad hitlicrto been accepted as essential. Thus, eczema is placed in one group of Devergic's; in a second, imijetigo; and in a third, lichen and