The conditions which modify the characters of inflammations of the skin, and their influence on treatment : being the Lettsonian lectures at the Medical Society of London, on February 16, March 2 and 16, 1903 / by H. Radcliffe-Crocker.

  • Crocker, H. Radcliffe (Henry Radcliffe), 1845-1909
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The conditions which modify the characters of inflammations of the skin, and their influence on treatment : being the Lettsonian lectures at the Medical Society of London, on February 16, March 2 and 16, 1903 / by H. Radcliffe-Crocker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    THE LETTSOMIAN LECTURES : THE CONDITIONS WHICH MODIFY THE CHARACTERS OF INFLAM- MATIONS OF THE SKIN, AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON TREATMENT. LECTURE I. Mr. President and Fellows,—Let me first thank you for the honour you have clone me in electing me your Lettsomian Lecturer, though when I looked clown the list of my distinguished predecessors I can only say that my temerity in accepting the responsibility has weighed upon me ever since I assented to do so, and all the more so, because the time afforded for the preparation of the lectures has been much curtailed by the unexpected prolonga- tion of a previous task. It is just about a century ago that Dr. Robert Willan was issuing, in parts, his work on inflammations of the skin, which was published in its complete form in 1808. He was a distinguished member of this Society, and was the second recipient of the Fothergillian gold medal in 1790 for the outline of his plan for the arrangement and description of cutaneous diseases. Although there had been previous attempts by Lorry, Plenck, arid Alibert to present the study of skin diseases in an intelligible form, it is not too much to say that Willan’s treatise was so far in advance of its predecessors that he may be regarded as the father' of modern dermatology, and that his work, from its practical character, gave the study of skin diseases an impetus which it has never lost, and it will not, I trust, therefore, be a waste of time to glance briefly at his views before I show you how the subject may be regarded at the present day. Willan looked at the matter entirely from its clinical aspect and divided inflammations of the skin into papular, scaly, vesicular, bullous, and pustular forms, the divisions depending on the most prominent clinical feature of the disease, although lie was well aware that some diseases might pass from one phase to another—as papular into scaly and vesicular into pustular. For