Page:Archives of dermatology, vol 6.djvu/133

 Archives of Dermatology.

APRIL, 1880.

ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS.

CASE OF A CHRONIC INFLAMMATORY TUBERCULO-VESICULAR SKIN DISEASE.*

BY ARTHUR VAN HARLINGEN, M.D.,

Chief of the Skin Clinic, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

THE following case seems to present sufficient peculiarity to sepa- rate it from any affection with which I am familiar, and I desire to place it on record with sufficient detail, in order that it may be grouped with any similar cases that may be brought to light in the future. I have given it the rather long and somewhat indefinite title inscribed above simply with a view of presenting one or two features which are characteristic among the symptoms of the affec- tion, and which may catch the eye of some future investigator.

Theresa U., an unmarried German woman, 39 years of age, was a patient in the Pennsylvania Hospital, under the care of Dr. James H. Hutchinson, to whom I am indebted for the opportunity of ex- amining and recording the case. I first saw her on November 20, 1878, when the following notes regarding her history were obtained with some difficulty, on account of the patient's extreme sluggish- ness, almost stupidity, unusual even for a person of her station.

Her grandfather and grandmother were healthy, and died at an advanced age. Her father also was healthy ; he died of apoplexy. Her mother suffered from rheumatism, followed by a decline, from which she died. One sister died at two and a half years of age, of a large tumor over the sacrum. The patient herself had always enjoyed fair health, with the exception of an attack of rheumatism at the age of 17, and the chronic skin affection for which she sought relief. The latter, she believed, must have made its first appearance in the earlier years of her life, although she had no clear recollection of it


 * Read at the third annual meeting of the American Dermatological Association, New York, August 27, 1879.