Healthy skin : a popular treatise on the skin and hair, their preservation & management / by Erasmus Wilson.

  • Wilson, Erasmus, Sir, 1809-1884.
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Healthy skin : a popular treatise on the skin and hair, their preservation & management / by Erasmus Wilson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    without iucreasing or becomiug red; but when they iu- flame, they care in no wise diiferent in their course from the common kind. There is, however, a variety of acne which settles on the nose, and is a subject of some facetiousness of nomenclatiu-e, though no joke to the possessor. It is called, for ex- ample, bacchia, from its occasional bacchanal origin, and rosacea, from its rosy redness I presume, certainly not for its beauty. But if its history be pursued, it might, with very good reason, be called besieger, not only from the siege which it lays to the nose and adjacent parts of the face, and the annoyance which it causes its victim, but from the manner of its aggression, and subsequent opera- tions. It begins, for example, by very slowly throwing up a mound of red skin, and for months, perhaps, goes no further; then we see a chain of low barrows, extending to another mound in the act of rising, sometimes two chains passing in different directions, or perhaps a mound in the distance which the chain goes to meet. These operations are always remarkable for their slowness, but not less for their certainty of success, for wherever the skin is hemmed in by these pimply ridges, it is as deeply red as the pimples themselves; and after a time, when the whole nose pro- bably, and a considerable extent of the adjacent face, is covered by them, both the latter and the intermediate skin are marked by large veins, which spread out their branches like tributary streams of a large river. Occasionally, small collections of yellow matter form upon these pimples, but this is by no means their common character. They pre- serve a heightened colour under all circumstances, but undergo a change having relation to the state of the blood flowing through them. Thus, for example, when the cir- culation is active, tliey are fully distended and brightly red; while in cold weatlier, or under tlie influence of causes whicli retard circulation, tlicy are bkiish, or even livid in hue. There is anotlior form of acne [.yycos/.y] wliicli occurs upon the chin, and is excessively obstinate and enduring.