Page:Skin Diseases of Children.djvu/74

48 explanation. When from exposure to cold or some other cause an inflammation of the brain or lungs results, the blood flows in an unusual quantity to the affected organ, and any eruption upon the skin soon begins to fade and disappear. This, of course, takes place whether any ointment be applied or not. In such a case it might be said, with perhaps more truth, that the eruption has been drawn in, but it is evident that the disappearance of the skin disease is the result and not the cause of the internal inflammation.

The common belief that a skin disease is the outlet of some poisonous or vicious material in the blood is quite erroneous, and, in the light of modern pathology, a most absurd idea. An eruption can never be justly considered as either useful or beneficial to a patient. When a physician is unable to cure a case of infantile eczema, it may serve a purpose to claim that the eruption is salutary and that its sudden removal by local applications would be liable to produce disastrous results. The truth, however, is as follows : An eczema ought always to be cured as speedily as possible. This can always be done without the slightest danger of any harm to other organs of the body. Physicians of the largest experience in the treatment of skin diseases will all agree upon this point, and the sooner the old idea of the metastasis or translation of eczema is given up, the better it will be for the health of future babies and for the comfort of those who have the care of them.

In the treatment of eczema in infancy and childhood, it is well to remember that the disease is inflammatory in character, usually acute or subacute, and that our main object should therefore be to soothe the congested skin. If there were a law in this country prohibiting the use of any ointment save the officinal unguentum zinc oxidi, what a blessing it would be to children with acute eczema! As it is now, the physician is usually disposed to regard zinc ointment as little better than a domestic remedy, it being so well known. Familiarity with it has bred contempt. It will not do, he argues, for a man of his experience and reputation to prescribe so common and simple a remedy, and so he adds to it a little ichthyol and a little resorcin and a little carbolic acid, or possibly some one of the "new remedies" with which the general practitioner is usually familiar long before the specialist is willing to try them. The result is that the druggist is called upon to rub up a salve in which the bland, emollient character of the simple zinc oint-