On the transmission, from parent to offspring, of some forms of disease, and of morbid taints and tendencies / by James Whitehead.

  • Whitehead, James, 1812-1885.
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: On the transmission, from parent to offspring, of some forms of disease, and of morbid taints and tendencies / by James Whitehead. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    106/370 (page 92)
    92 HEREDITARY TRANSMISSION. groups of papules of lichenous character, covered with thin, dry scales, all being surrounded by a coppery areola, which gradually faded away in the dry parchment-like skin. Of the blotches on the face, the more recent ones were covered with crusts of a dirty grey colour, others were dark brown, or nearly black. From some of them the crusts had fallen off, leaving a deep red cicatrix, glazed, and minutely wrin¬ kled. The features appeared old, shrunk, dry, and furrowed; the eyes were exceedingly tender, the eyelids inflamed, un¬ even, and without hairs, at the outer canthus of each was an ulcerated fissure. The nasal breathing Avas noisy, the voice subdued to a whisper, the mouth puckered, its com¬ missures fissured, the fauces, gums, and inside of the lips and cheeks inflamed, and here and there excoriated. The skin around the anus and on the scrotum was inflamed, and an ulcerated fissure occupied the situation of the scrotal raphe. The invasion of the symptoms dated from the third week of life. It could scarcely be hoped that medicinal treatment would accomplish any beneficial change upon a case of this descrip¬ tion. Inunction with unguentum hydrargyri was practised upon the abdomen, and small doses of potas, iod. in sarsa- parilla given ; these seemed for a few days to be attended with benefit; but the child died a fortnight afterwards, at the age of twenty weeks. The mother stated that she had borne nine children pre¬ vious to this, of whom five survive : the rest died of measles and other diseases incidental to infant life, but none of them exhibited symptoms similar in character to these here de¬ scribed. She had contracted a primary venereal affection from her husband two years and three months previously, namely, in March, 1844. Two hard, excavated sores лтеге situated within the labia pudendi, one opposite to the other ; these were