The eclectic practice of medicine / by Wm. Byrd Powell and R.S. Newton.

  • Powell, W. Byrd (William Byrd), 1799-1866.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The eclectic practice of medicine / by Wm. Byrd Powell and R.S. Newton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    vesicles, a circumstance that soon follows their formation, forms, upou dessication, extensive scabs or crusts, exposing, when detached, red surfaces that secrete an abundance of ichorous fluid of a reddish tinge, which hardens, by expo- sure, into a thin, dark-colored scab, that continues until the part is healed. By successive crops of the eruption, the disease may be continued for several weeks. When it is local, as it most generally is, the constitutional symptoms are very light, or else entirely absent; but when it is gen- eral, all the symptoms that usually attend inflammation are present. The* local symptoms always indicate the vio- lence of the disease, by the burning, smarting, and throb- bing pain it occasions, which is so much increased by the warmth of a bed as to prevent sleep. Like other acute forms of disease, eczema sometimes appears in the chronic form, more particularly when it has been severe, protracted, and aggravated. It is marked by extensive excoriations and fissures in the derma, more espe- cially in the flectures of the joints and axillae. They exude a serous fluid, which, upon dessication, causes an adhesion of the dressings or clothing to them. Sometimes when the disease appears nearly well, it will, without any known cause, re-appear with still greater violence ; and thus, by a repetition of the same course, it may continue for years. The cracked and fissured derma sometimes continues dry with a firm adhesion of the crusts, and when they finally become detached the surface appears of a slightly red color ; but in some cases it is very red and so continues for a long time. The itching in this affection i3 frequently distress- ing, no matter on what part of the surface it be located ; but when it is the pubes, the arm-pits, scrotum, groin, and pudendum, the annoyance is not less than the distress, and both are very great. Eczema is said to occur more fre- quently in women-than men, and in summer rather than winter. . ' Causes.—Upon this subject but little is certainly known. It is thought that irritating applications to the skin, as blisters, sinapisms, irritating ointments, dry frictions, ex-