On diseases of the skin : a system of cutaneous medicine / by Erasmus Wilson, F.R.S.

  • Wilson, Erasmus, Sir, 1809-1884.
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On diseases of the skin : a system of cutaneous medicine / by Erasmus Wilson, F.R.S. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and bulla by virtue of a tie of relationship, and furunculus a no very distant connexion. In this combination we find the mate- rial of our first four groups, and the three following are supplied by the nerves, the blood-vessels, and the blood; development, nutrition, and growth furnish the two next groups, namely, deve- lopmental and nutritive affections, with hypertrophy and atrophy; and diathesis the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth, namely, alphos, struma, and carcinoma. Older authors and writers were content with these twelve groups; hence an apparent greater simplicity in their works than in those of the present age; but, according to modern views, about half the affections of the skin were omitted in consequence of this curtailment. For example, our thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth groups are devoted to zymotic affections, syphilodermata, and elephantiasis Grsecorum; our six- teenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth groups to diseases of the epi- dermis, namely, pigmentary, phy to dermic, and ungual affections; then follow, from the nineteenth to the twenty-first, affections of the hair system, sebiparous system, and sudoriparous system; and the twenty-second and last, traumatic affections. Twenty- two groups of cutaneous affections may sound somewhat startling to the ear, but when they are investigated by the understanding, the classification will not be found more copious than is neces- sary for the clear and precise development of the subject. It would be difficult to curtail the number with advantage, and it may be desirable at some future time to increase the sum, for example, by the separation of the hypertrophic from the atrophic affections which are at present assembled under one head. Next to precision of classification there is no one thing more needed in cutaneous medicine than precision and accuracy of nomenclature. Dermopathology has reason to boast of a noble ancestry and an ancient literature; the terms that we employ at the present day are the language of the Fathers of medicine. To the student of dermatology the terms, psora, lepra, lichen, alphos, melas, leuce, herpes, &c, have a deeper and more suggestive signification than that conveyed by the mere words, and, in the following pages, we have endeavoured to invest these terms with