ECZEMA. (Humid Tetter-Salt Rheum-Dry Tetter). Definition
Categories:
Diseases of The Skin
Eczema is an
inflammatory disease of the skin, characterized at its commencement by
redness, pimples, vesicles, pustules and their combinations, with itching
and burning. It terminates in a watery or pus-like discharge with the
formation of crusts or scaling.
Varieties. There are many varieties, red, scaly, fissured, watery looking
and hard skin.
Symptoms. Itching is almost always a sy
ptom of this disease. There is
more or less pouring out of liquid (serum). The dry, scaly type, and the
weeping type, may alternate with each other. There are six cardinal
symptoms; inflammation, itching, moisture, crusting, infiltration (liquid
filling of the tissues), fissuring or cracking. Dr. Fox says that nearly
one-third of all skin diseases are eczema in some of its stages or
varieties. In one kind there is red spot (macule). The skin is dry, of a
bright or dull red color, with intense itching or burning, more or less
watery swelling in the acute stage. In the chronic stage, the skin becomes
thick and covered with fine dry scales, usually in the face (Eczema
Erythematosum).