Scab

“ This ulcer does not occur early, and is not constant. The case under Pyle's observation showed no ulceration, and was absolutely painless, the negress applying for diagnosis rather than treatment. The furrow deepens until spontaneous amputation takes place, which rarely occurs, the patient generally hastening the process by his own operation, or by seeking surgical treatment. A dry scab forms at the furrow, and when picked and repicked constantly re-forms, being composed of horny desquamation or necrosis. ”

“ Thus, scrophula is marked by a particular appearance of the cicatrix, or of the scab. The venereal ulcer has likewise a particular scab, and many cutaneous ulcers are best distinguished by the scab. Other actions produce no considerable ulceration, but only successive desquamation of the cuticle.
We may also sometimes discover specific action by the sensation of which the action is productive. Thus, for instance, cancer produces a burning kind of pain, which never attends simple ulceration. ”

“ Experience has amply demonstrated that a properly made and properly used lime-and-sulphur dip is one of the cheapest and most efficient scab eradicators known, but its use should be confined to flocks in which scab is known to exist, and to shorn sheep, with the exception of very severe cases of scab in unshorn sheep. It should only be used when it can be properly boiled and settled. The use of lime-and-sulphur dips in flocks not known to have scab, especially if the sheep are full fleeced, cannot be recommended; in such cases tobacco, or sulphur and tobacco, is safer and equally good. ”

“ If we kept not only our wounds surgically clean, but our gums, noses, throats, skins, and fingernails, and burned and sterilized everything that came in contact with a sore, pustule, or scab, we should wipe out nine-tenths of our cases of wound-infection and suppuration ”

“ Mr Cunningham once observed summer-dropt lambs with milk blotches, become fly blown, but this was in wet weather. Scab, or itch, is the most common disease, but of it I need not say any thing here. It never presents much variety, and is a disease better understood than almost any other. ”

“ In chapter xiii., we are told that “if a man has a bright spot deeper than the skin of the flesh, the hair on which has turned white, or the white spot has a raw in it, and the scab be spread in the skin—then shall the priest pronounce him unclean.” But, if he have all the above symptoms, and “the scabs do not spread, or, if he be covered from head to foot—as white as snow—with the disease, then shall the priest pronounce him clean. ”

“ It is one which might be of much use in Base hospitals if the patients were brought directly into them, but in the Field hospitals, in face of the rush with which the first dressings have to be done, I think it is seldom applicable, and consider the interference with the wound as rather likely to increase the danger of infection than to decrease it.
Dressings should not be too frequent; two should suffice for simple wounds with type forms of entry and exit; there is little discharge and usually no bleeding: hence the more the dry scab form of healing can be simulated the better. ”

“ As the disorder advances to a more inveterate malignity, these pustules burst, the scab or eschar exfoliates, and each becomes a virulent, ill-conditioned ulcer. In many instances the progress is extended with incredible rapidity ”

“ If the eschar be unadherent by subjacent pus, it may be ascertained in the space of from twelve to twenty-four hours; the centre is generally observed to be raised and to yield to the pressure [15] of a probe; sometimes the subjacent fluid has partly escaped by an opening at the side of the eschar.
When a scab forms underneath the eschar, which does not happen except the fluid has been allowed to remain too long under the eschar without being evacuated, there are pain and some inflammation, the eschar does not separate, but remains long over the sore, and there is no appearance of healing. ”

“ This last mode of proceeding is strongly opposed by some authorities, as likely to induce unnecessary inflammatory action, through [42] the formation of a scab, which may require for its removal a process of sloughing, which may in some cases give rise to serious complications. As I have stated, the clamps are not always made of wood, and very many alterations and improvements, so called, have been from time to time brought forward. In Fig. 11 a few of these clamps are presented. ”

“ TREATMENT OF SCAB AND MANGE.—A careful inspection of recently purchased animals that pass through stockyards, or are shipped from sections where scab and mange are common skin diseases, is an important preventive measure. Infected animals should be completely isolated from the herd, and kept apart from other animals until after they have been treated. Hogs that are slightly infected should be quarantined and treated. ”

“ It is not often that we are under a necessity of making any application to the part where the operation was performed; it most commonly heals up, and is covered with a scab, about the time when, in a natural way, all the pocks would have been dried up: but there are some cases wherein the incisions continue to discharge a purulent matter longer ”

“ The eschar is generally adherent in cases of recent injuries, and in small ulcers, when they are nearly even with the skin and attended by little inflammation. In other cases the eschar is too apt to be unadherent, and this arises from the formation of pus or of a scab underneath. ”

“ These increase in size and become crusted over, so that the characteristic lesion can only be seen round the edge of the scab. Growth continues to take place for several months, when scab and scutulum come away, leaving a shining bare patch destitute of hair. The disease is essentially chronic, lasting from ten to twenty years. It is caused by the growth of a fungus, and pathologically is the reaction of the tissues to the growth. ”

“ The patient stated that the right mamma had always been larger than the left. The areola was large and well marked, and 1/4 inch from its outer edge, immediately under the nipple, there was an ulcer with slightly elevated edges measuring about 1 1/4 inches across the base, and having an opening in its center 1/4 inch in diameter, covered with a thin scab. By removing the scab and making pressure at the base of the ulcer, drops of thick, mucopurulent matter were made to exude. This discharge, however, was not offensive to the smell. ”

“ Soreness of the scrotum is very common, and I have seen it in every description of dog. I attribute it to derangement of the digestion; never having witnessed it in animals that were not thus affected, and not having been able to discover it had any more immediate origin. It mostly appears first as a redness, which soon becomes covered with small pimples, that break and discharge a thin watery fluid. The fluid coagulates, and a thin scab covers the surface. The scab is generally detached, being retained only by the straggling hairs that grow upon the bag. ”

“ The sheep laboring under the scab is exceedingly restless. It rubs itself with violence against trees, stones, fences, etc.; scratches itself with its feet, bites its sores, and tears off its wool with its teeth; as the pustules are broken, their matter escapes, and forms scabs, causing red, inflamed sores, which constantly extend, increasing the misery of the tortured animal; if unrelieved, he pines away, and soon perishes.
The post-mortem appearances are very uncertain and inconclusive. There is generally chronic inflammation of the intestines, with the presence of a great number of worms. ”

“ Aetius420 mentions pustulae spontaneae in pudendis (pustules spontaneously set up on the privates) , provoking phimosis, and describes421 scabies scroti (scab of the scrotum) with metathesis into ulceration and scaliness, after the disappearance of which very often acute pruritus scroti (itch of the scrotum) is left behind. Galen (XIX. p. 449.) defines psoriasis scroti (itching of the scrotum) as a form of induration of the scrotum accompanied by itching, as well as in some instances by ulcers. ”

“ Ennyway the baby is all rite.
June 11. i hate to go to church. we have all got to be vaxinated. sum peeple in the next town have got the small pocks. Beany has been and Pewt two. Beany says the doctor takes a nife and cuts a hole in your arm and then puts on a big scab whitch has come of somebodys arm whitch has been vaxinated, and that stops the blud. but he says that if the scab dont fit you bleed to deth. ”

“ At the Beginning of this Infection it can scarcely be distinguished, if a Person is not well apprized of its Nature; but in the Progress of it, the little Pustules increase both in Number and Size; and when they are opened by scratching, a loathsome kind of Scab is formed, and the Malady extends over the whole Surface. Where they continue long, they produce small Ulcers, and are at that Time highly contagious. ”

“ The treatment is identical with that of psoroptic mange in sheep. After the animals have been sheared and washed with soap, they should be completely immersed in a bath of the character mentioned in connection with sheep scab. If only one animal is infected, it may be sufficient to dress it repeatedly with an ointment containing some parasiticide. ”

“ In Van Dieman's Land, the sheep are all reared in enclosed paddocks or fields as in England, and the sheep farmers there never attempt the thorough eradication of scab, contenting themselves with merely keeping it down, as it is called, and from the circumstance of the sheep not being enclosed in hurdles at night or fed in flocks during the day, it does not spread with the same rapidity or become so formidable a disease as when the contrary is the case. ”

“ Fig. 519.—Multiple Needle Electrode.
In this treatment the needles are made to puncture the skin at right angles to them to a depth corresponding to the papillary layer. These pigments lie above that, so that it is not necessary to include the derma. At each point of puncture a white spot will appear which soon turns red. In a day’s time a number of fine scabs, or a single scab, will form over the parts treated, which fall away in about five days eventually, leaving the parts [485] paler than before, owing to a number of minute punctate scars. ”

“ When a dressing needs changing from fouling of its outer parts, it is preferable to cut round the adherent part of the deep layers and apply some fresh gauze over the central scab rather than to remove it. ”

“ The eruptions due to scratching have already been described in the descriptions of the ‘scratched skin,’ and comprise excoriations, erythema in parallel lines, eczema, impetiginous or so-called ecthymatous eruptions and wheals, and the inflammatory scab-topped papules often left after the subsidence of the wheals—especially in children. In carmen, cobblers, tailors, and others who sit on hard boards for hours together, pustular and scabbed eruptions, situated over the ischial tuberosities, are so abundant and constant as to be practically diagnostic of scabies in such people. ”

“ There comes a white swelling or scab, with a change of the color of the hair on the part from its natural hue to yellow; then the appearance of a taint going deeper than the skin, or raw flesh appearing in the swelling. Then it spreads and attacks the cartilaginous portions of the body. The nails loosen and drop off, the gums are absorbed, and the teeth decay and fall out; the breath is a stench, the nose decays; fingers, hands, feet, may be lost, or the eyes eaten out. ”

“ These pimples are so well known by most persons as scarcely to need description; they are conical, red, and hard; after awhile, they become white, and yellow at the point, then discharge a thick yellow-colored matter, mingled with a whitish substance, and become covered by a hard, brown scab, and lastly, disappear very slowly, sometimes very imperfectly, and often leaving an ugly scar behind them. To these symptoms are not unfrequently added considerable pain, and always much unsightliness. ”

“ In the mild form of the disorder the blisters vary in size from a pea to a chestnut. They chiefly attack the extremities, and break after three or four days, when they then give rise to a thin scab, which soon heals and disappears without causing any bodily derangement. ”

“ Use pure alcohol (not wood or denatured, as both are poisonous) , or a teaspoonful of sulphur-naphthol to a basin of water, or 1:1000 corrosive sublimate solution (wad with flexible collodion) . Do not use vaseline or any other substance on a freshly abrased surface. After a scab has formed, vaseline may be applied to keep this scab soft. Never close a wound with court plaster [1] . The only legitimate uses for sticking or adhesive plaster are to hold dressings in place where bandaging is difficult, or in case of a cut to keep edges closed without sewing the skin. ”

“ This ulcer remains long superficial; the edges are hard and rounded; the discharge is thin; the surface is glossy, and no distinct granulations can be seen; the pain is slightly smarting, but not burning, and instead of being fungous, the sore is slightly hollowed out below the level of the surrounding skin. By the continuance of this affection, the gland is apt to shrink and diminish in size; and generally where this takes place, the sore contracts and heals with a very puckered unequal cicatrix, having, in some places, a thick dark coloured scab covering it110. ”