Excerpt from Cutaneous Medicine, Vol. 2: A Systematic Treatise on the Diseases of the Skin; Classification, Anaemias, Hyperaemias, Inflammations

It is believed that a modification and elaboration of the author's old classification, already referred to, may be made with advantage. By the plan presented the many and varied diseases which occur in the integument are arranged so as to be of use in practice. It differs from the author's earlier plan in the omission of an etiological class and in other ways. In the present state of our knowledge, it will serve the purposes of dermatology best if questions of etiology, important though they are, be excluded from the framework of a classification, place being elsewhere afforded for their recognition. In doing this their great im portance is not undervalued. The student must become acquainted with the cutaneous manifestations of disease, with the lesions and other symptoms, before he can understand their etiology and their intimate pathology. This applies particularly to the inflammatory diseases. Prominence is therefore given in the classification to clinical features and to normal anatomy as well as to pathological anatomy. The dis eases are arranged in such a manner that their chief clinical characters are in many instances grouped and brought forward prominently. The clinician and the pathologist must labor together, one supporting the other. The diseases involving the appendages of the skin Specially or solely are considered in the several classes and divisions where they appropriately belong. The appendages are a part of the integument, and in a pathological classification cannot well be separated from it. The plan presented deals Specially with the skin. It is founded upon pathology and pathological anatomy. Well defined diseases only are introduced; hence it is unencumbered. It is believed to be fairly con sistent, and is simple. The microscope plays a very important part in the elucidation of cutaneous diseases, and the classification receives sup port in most instances from this valuable aid. It is through this instru ment principally that the subject matter has been elaborated in the past; it is to it that we have a right to look for further revelations in the future.

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