The limitations of internal therapeutics in skin diseases / by James C. White.

  • White, James C. (James Clarke), 1833-1916.
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The limitations of internal therapeutics in skin diseases / by James C. White. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    are under the direct control of internal medication in any uniform or marked degree? I wish that I might claim such power over ten of them ; such power as arsenic may exhibit in psoriasis, as mercury almost always does in syphilis, and which makes external treatment unnecessary. Even in re- spect to these exceptionally effective drugs, arsenic, mercury, and iodine, it cannot be said that they may not largely do their work upon the cutaneous tissues by direct local influ- ence in the dermal circulation. In this brief muster of the slim forces, which constitute our only reliable resources of internal medication in skin diseases, pessimistic as such a catalogue may seem to the sanguine practitioner, I have of course not intended to deny that much may often be done to hasten their good work by the simultaneous use of remedies which elevate the general tone of the patient’s functions and tissues when needed, and the same is true of their action in many cases where we rely wholly upon local treatment for cure ; but it would be impossible even to enumerate them here, as we are not discussing general therapeutics. There are innumerable coincident conditions associated with the der- matoses which may influence their progress, although they have no direct etiological connection with them, and which demand our attention. In other words, we have always our whole patient to consider. I do not, however, believe that these narrow limitations may not be enlarged, and I would encourage any experimental studies, empirical or philo- sophical, in this direction. It is the manner in which this important subject has been hitherto so generally treated, so detrimental to scientific progress, that I deprecate. But a frank confession of our present inabilities is an essential step in any real advance.