Differential diagnosis of syphilitic and non-syphilitic affections of the skin, including tropical diseases : a survey for medical practioners and students / by George Pernet.

  • Pernet George.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Differential diagnosis of syphilitic and non-syphilitic affections of the skin, including tropical diseases : a survey for medical practioners and students / by George Pernet. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    looked for at the borders. At other times, it may be associated with circular bald areas elsewhere on the scalp, there is band-form denudation extending round the head (Ophiasis of Celsus), a condition which occurs both in children and adults. It is rare to see bald areas simulating Alopecia areata in secondary syphilis, but such may occur. The presence of other secondary signs and sym- ptoms would assist in the diagnosis, and mercurial treatment would lead to growth of hair on the patches, although it should be borne in mind that syphilitic loss of hair has a tendency to get well spontaneously. Of course ordinary Alopecia areata and syphilis may be accidentally associated in the same individual. Again, loss of hair associated with a seborrhceic or pityriasic condition of the scalp, which is so common, must not be put down to syphilis, as it sometimes is. Nor must the baldness of the vertex and the receding of the hair from the temples and forehead lead to the same error. In syphilis there is a tendency for the hair to return spontaneously, an event which is sometimes attributed to the effects of an advertised nostrum. In Myxoedema, the hair of the scalp becomes poor in quality and small in quantity. The characteristic features of that disease would be a sufficient sign- post. There is a condition of the hair of the scalp which is extremely significant of syphilis, almost patho- gnomonic, and that is the existence of small, finger- tip sized, fairly well defined areas of thinning