Excerpt from Skin Diseases of Parasitic Origin: Their Nature and Treatment, Including the Description and Relations of the Fungi Found in Man

IT is a matter of frequent confession that diseases of the skin are not only little understood, and receive at our medical schools much less attention than their importance demands, but that their treatment is in great part empirical, and their classification in need of reconstruction. Much of this shortcoming arises from the fact that skin diseases form a specialty, and this leads observers not only to esti mate them as local ailments, but shuts out of view many cc-existent conditions which act as guides to treatment by suggesting a variety of causation. To separate skin dis eases from out the domain, and to study them as other than part and parcel of general medicine, is utterly wrong and antagonistic to successful treatment; yet such is the marked error of the present day. Diseases of the skin are but outward evidences, in the vast majority of cases, of certain alterations of the blood, and he who would be a thorough dermatologist, must comprehend intimately, and have under constant observation, the details of medicine generally. Acne, one of the commonest and most annoying diseases of the surface, to which I have paid much atten tion, is an apt illustration; I believe, in the great bulk of instances, it is related as cause and effect with definite and remediable derangements of the stomach and uterine functions, mostly, indeed almost invariably disregarded.

The ordinary treatment by arsenic or iron is empirical, and takes no cognizance of those deviations which compose the cause. In turning my attention to skin diseases I have most sedulously avoided the error noticed.

I submit to the profession this work, which treats of vegetable parasites and the diseases with which they are associated (popularly known as ringworms), as one of a series of essays on skin diseases; and inasmuch as there is no English collective account or text-book of the kind, em bracing not only the nature and treatment of tinea, but also a descriptive account of epiphytes and entophytes, and the relations which these bear severally to each other, an attempt is made to supply a want which, pretty generally felt in the schools, is a serious impediment to the study of this branch of skin diseases.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.