Chillblains may be treated with a mixture of sweet oil, 5 ozs., oil of turpentine ½ oz., Aqua Ammonia ½ oz., oil of peppermint 1 dr., or powdered camphor 10 grs., Peru balsam 20 drops, linseed oil 2 ozs. Nourishing food and a course of iron should be given.
Dermatitis Medicamentosa. Medicines given by the mouth sometimes cause inveterate skin eruptions. Among these are arsenic, belladonna, bromides, iodides, mercurials, salicylates, tansy, turpentine, tar, and the carminative seeds and oils. The latter are chargeable with many eruptions in live stock fed on patent foods. In cattle treated with iodides for actinomycosis, an universal eruption and desquamation is a common condition. In all such cases the drug must be withheld, the bowels cleared out by a purgative and the elimination of any remaining irritant products favored by gentle diuretics.
ECZEMA. A BOILING OUT. A PUSTULE.
General method of eruption. Successive advancing lesions. Definition. Causes: usual factors and special susceptibility.
This term, standing for what boils out, has long been applied to vesicular eruptions on the skin, but inasmuch as the inflammation rarely stops short with vesiculation, but usually in part at least goes on to more advanced lesions, it must be held to include in many cases erythema, papules, vesicles, pustules, crusts, desquamations and erosions. All of these may coexist or succeed each other in the same subject, so that considerable latitude must be allowed to the name to cover all parts and stages of the same attack. Dermatologists have defined eczema as a non-infectious inflammation of the skin with multiform manifestations, but recent observations would indicate that it may at times, at least, be contagious, and micrococci have been found in the serum of the vesicles, while the very occurrence of pus must virtually imply the existence of a bacterial infection. Doubtless different diseases pass under this name in the different genera and species, and even in the same variety of animals, yet until we learn to discriminate sharply the one from the other, it is convenient to consider the whole as a kindred clinical group, if not a pathological entity.
Definition. An acute or more frequently, a chronic inflammation of the skin and sometimes of the mucosæ, characterized by itching, erythema, papules, vesicles, serous or sero-purulent exudation with squama or crusts and loss of hair, and usually largely due to an internal cause. The exudative condition has suggested a catarrh of the skin.
Causes. These are the usual causes of skin disease, local and general, together with a special susceptibility, under which, what are ordinary irritants produce this characteristic disease. Many local irritants can produce eczema, but again it is often the case that these factors will operate on a given susceptible subject while on another they are without much effect. This susceptibility is called a “dartrous diathesis” by the French writers, while most English and American writers are willing rather to find the hidden cause or causes in the disorder of internal organs (digestive, hepatic, urinary, generative, hæmatic, trophic, infective, plethoric, atonic).
ACUTE ECZEMA IN SOLIPEDS. DORSAL ASPECT.
Head, neck, shoulder, back, under girths, breeching, crupper. Summer. Moulting. Heavy coat. Thin skin. Youth. Symptoms: erect hair, papular groups, hot, thick rigid skin, itching, abrasion, ulceration, encrusting, pustules, white spot and hair. Treatment: laxative, cooling diet, cleanliness, pure air, shade, rest, alkalies, locally vaseline, astringents, dusting powder, anodynes, tar water, creolin, etc.
This shows itself especially on the head, the sides of the neck, under the collar, or saddle, the circingle or crupper, the breeching or general surface. In these cases the profuse secretion of sweat, and the friction of the harness is a marked local factor in its production. It often shows a preference for the summer season, the period of shedding the coat, the heavy coated animal, the animal with white, thin or delicate skin. Youth also predisposes.