Impetigo contagiosa : its clinical features / by Henry W. Stelwagon.

  • Stelwagon, Henry W. (Henry Weightman), 1853-1919.
Date:
[1883]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Impetigo contagiosa : its clinical features / by Henry W. Stelwagon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    IMPETIGO CONTAGIOSA : ITS CLINICAL FEATURES. * i BY HENRY W: STELWAGON, M. D. Physician to the Philadelphia Dispensary tor Skin Diseases and to the Service for Skin Diseases of the Northern Dispensary ; Attending Physician to the Howard Hospital (Skin Department). IN a period of three years and a half, out of a total of twenty-seven hundred consecutive cases of skin disease, eighty-eight have been examples of the disease known as impetigo contagiosa. The cases have been, as a rule, of a uniform type, although occasional deviations in regard to the character of the lesion, distribution, and course were met with. The affection as commonly observed is well illustrated by the following case: Case I.—R. A., male, aged 3. On face were several scattered flat vesicles and vesico-pustules and bullae, varying in size from a pin head to a dime, the larger ones showing a tendency to umbilication and already beginning to dry in the centre into a thin crust. The contents of the Jesions were in some purely vesicular, in others vesico-pustular, all becoming vesico-pustular sooner or later. The lesions were superficial in character, surrounded by a narrow red band, and but slightly inflammatory. One of the bullae had already dried, and appeared as a small crusted patch, the crust being thin, granular, yellow¬ ish, and wafer like. The eruption had existed three days and had been pre¬ ceded by slight malaise, and had begun as little “water-blisters,” which rapidly enlarged. At the present time the child was apparently in perfect health, and there seemed to be no subjective symptoms. A brother had the same disease, as also had several children in the same neighborhood. In a few days new patches were seen on the face, one or two in the scalp, and several on the hands. The enveloping membrane of one of the new pea-sized bullae had been rubbed off, and the surface appeared like a shallow erosion or burn, secreting a thin sero-purulent fluid. The older bullae were drying rapidly ; two or three had become confluent, making a patch as large as a silver half- dollar, covered with the same peculiar crust as already noted. When seen two days later, the more recent vesicles had grown into bullae, flat, um- *.Reprinted from the Philadelphia Medical Times, Sept. 22, 1883.