Cases of Itch

9 A girl had a violent eruption of itch on the legs, with large ulcers in the bend of the knee. Being attacked with smallpox the itch was suppressed.

This induced a humid inflammation of the white of the eye and of the eyelids, with itching and suppuration of the same, and the vision of dark bodies floating before her eyes; this lasted for two years. Then for three days she put on the stockings of a child afflicted with the itch. On the last day a fever broke out, with dry cough, tension in the chest, with inclination to vomit. On the following day the fever and the tension of the chest diminished and a sweat broke out, which increased until erysipelas broke out on both legs, and on the following day these passed over into the real itch. The eyes then improved.

40 A man whose itch had been driven off, but who was of robust constitution, was seized with cataract.

41 From itch expelled by external application there arose amaurosis, which passed away when the eruption re-appeared on the skin.

42 A vigorous man, when the itch had been expelled from the skin, was seized with amaurosis and remained blind to an advanced age.

43 Amaurosis from the same cause, with terrible headache.

44 Bleeding piles returned every month.

45 In consequence of itch driven off by external applications, loss of blood up to eight pounds within a few hours colic, fever, etc.

46 After the expulsion of itch a most violent colic, pain in the region of the left lower ribs, restlessness, lingering fever, anxiety and obstinate constipation.

47 A young peasant had driven off the itch with ointment, and shortly after he suffered from suppression of urine, vomiting, and at times from a pain in the left loin. Still he, after a while, passed urine a few times, but only a little, of dark color and attended with pains. In vain the attempt was made to empty it with a catheter. At last the whole body swelled up, difficult and slow respiration ensued, and he died on about the twenty-first day after the supres-sion of the itch. The bladder contained two pounds of urine just as dark, but the abdominal cavity, water, which when held for awhile over the fire thickened into a sort of albumen.

48A man rubbed himself with mercurial ointment against the itch, when there followed an erysipelatous inflammation in the neck, of which he died after five weeks.

49 A woman, after using a mercurial ointment against itch, had a putrescent eruption all over her body, so that whole pieces of flesh rotted away; she died in a few days with the greatest pains.

50 A youth of 16 years had the itch for some time; when this passed away ulcers broke out on the legs.

51 After rubbing with an ointment against the itch there followed with a man of 50 years tearing pains in the left shoulder for five weeks, when several ulcers broke out in the arm-pit.

52 A quack gave a student an ointment for the itch, from which it disappeared indeed, but instead of it an incurable ulcer broke out in the mouth.

53 A student who had been for a long time afflicted with the itch drove it off with an ointment, and instead of this there broke out ulcers on his arms and legs, and glandular swellings in the armpits. These ulcers were finally cured by external applications, when he was seized with dyspnoea and then with dropsy, and from these he died.

54 Many observations are found there, respecting cases where the itch, being driven off by ointments, there followed fever and blackish urine, and where, when the itch was brought back to the skin, the fever disappeared and the urine became like that of a healthy person.

55 A man and a woman had an eruption of itch on the hand, of many years’ standing, and as often as it dried up fever always ensued, and as soon as this came to an end the eruption of itch again returned; and yet this itch extended but to a small part of the body and was not driven off by external applications.

Fever, Reil, Memorab. Fasc. III., p. 169.56 Pelargus, as above; Jahrg., 1721, p. 276,57 and ibid. Jahrg., 1723.58 Amatus, Lusit. Cent. II., Cor., 33. Schiller, Diss. de scabie humida, Erford, 1747, p. 44.59 J. J. Fick, Exercitatio med. de scabie retropulsa, Halle, 1710, § 2.60 Pelargus, as above, Jahrg., 1722, p. 122.61 Also Jahrg., 1723, p. 10, p. 1462 and p. 291. C. G. Lud56 Itch was suppressed by a fever that set in; when the fever was removed it returned.

57 A mother put ointment on the tinea of a boy of nine years; it passed away, but there followed a violent fever.

58 A child, one year old, had had for some time tinea capitis and an eruption on the face; both these had shortly before dried up, when there followed heat, cough and diarrhoea. A return of the eruption on the head gave alleviation.