A systeme of anatomy, treating of the body of man, beasts, birds, fish, insects, and plants illustrated with many schemes, consisting of variety of elegant figures, drawn from the life, and engraven in seventy four folio copper-plates. And after every part of man's body hath been anatomically described, its diseases, cases, and cures are concisely exhibited. The first volume containing the parts of the lowest apartiments of the body of man and other animals, etc. / by Samuel Collins ...

CHAP. VI. Of divers Diseases incident to the Skin, commonly called, Itch, Scabs, and Scurfe.

THe Skin is obnoxious to many troublesome Disaffections, which dis∣guise the Face, and whole surface of the Body, among which the Itch, and Scab, as so many vexatious Diseases, may justly claim our notice, that we may enquire into their Nature; which maketh way for a Cure, most acceptable to Patients, who are desirous to quit such importunate Guests, giving frequent disposures, ingrate Eye-sores and nasty Itchings, attended sometime with a dry Skurfe, and Scab, and other times, with divers moist Wheals, tipped with white Heads, as so many Minute Ulcers, determining in Scabs upon Frication, speaking a high delight, to countermand the affli∣ctive solicitations, of burning Itchings.

To give this Disease a Description, it may be termed, * 1.1 a breaking out of the Skin in various Pimples, sometimes overspreading the whole Surface, and other times bespecking only some parts of the Body, proceeding from serous Humours (consisting of watry and saline Particles) transmitted by the Ca∣pillary Arteries, and spued out through Excretory Vessels of the inward Skin, and at last encircled, within many small exclosures of the outward Skin, raised into little Protuberancies, vulgarly called Pimples, dressed with white Cones (big with purulent, or serous Matter) which being highly rubbed, to ease us of a tickling pain, the thin Walls, encompassing this salt Liquor, are bro∣ken, and the nasty Matter gusheth out (besmearing the Surface of the neigh∣bouring Skin) which being dried up, is productive of Scabs, much defor∣ming the beauty of the fine ambient parts.

And that we may know the Causes and Symptoms of these Cutaneous Dis∣eases, it is requisite we should pry into the nature of them, whether salt Hu∣mours, lodged within the limits of the Skin, as primarily produced in it, or transmitted from some other part; and in what Wombs this Disease is con∣ceived, and afterward delivered out of these Matrices by numerous Ducts, into the most outward parts, where it is attended with violent Scratchings, to appease a torturing Itching.

As to the origen of these afflictive Distempers, we cannot justly charge it upon the defects of the Viscera, nor upon the Blood as composed (according to the commonly received opinion of the Antients) of Flegm, yellow and

black Choler, and pure Blood; or considered seperately from the other Hu∣mours, which cannot be discerned by the most curious Eye, as so many di∣stinct Humours (integrating the Mass of Blood) which are no ways sepe∣rable from each other by the contrivance of Art.

Wherefore I humbly conceive it more agreeable to Sense and Reason, * 1.2 that the Minera Morbi, is a thin transparent Liquor, lodged in the Glands, apper∣taining to the Skin, rendring it plump and graceful; so that this Humour, being dispoiled of the native purity, of its volatil saline temper, degenerates into a Fluor, and an acide indisposition, which is fed by new supplies of de∣praved soure Liquor of the Blood, and animal Juice conveyed by the Capil∣lary Arteries, and Nervous Fibrils, into the Cutaneous Glands.

Whereupon these serous Liquors, are composed of a double Matter, of an old Stock, and a new supply of Fuel; the one resident in the Minute Glands, the other derived to them, from the Vital and Animal Liquor, which being made up of Heterogeneous Principles, do after the manner of different Salts, as Alkalys, and Acids, make great Fermentations in these depraved Hu∣mours; which being thrown out of the Cutaneous Glands by Excretory Ves∣sels, are condensed into a kind of concreted Matter, filling, and distending the parts of the Skin; and afterward one part of the serous Liquor, pressing another forward, do lift up the outward from the inward Skin, defacing the smoother Surface, with many small Prominencies.

And the government of the ambient Region of the Body, * 1.3 cannot be so in∣violably conserved, but that the Glandulous Liquor of the Skin, may often degenerate from its proper Ingeny, into an ill disposed Ferment, which doth not only give a trouble to the skirts of the Body, but also infecteth its more inward Recesses with unnatural Intestine Motion: Hence the Humour, a guest of the Cutaneous Glands, growing gross and ill qualified, as divested of its fine clear disposition, obstructeth the Pores of the Glands, and Excre∣tory Ducts, hindring a free Transpiration, often producing Feverish Distem∣pers; or else the compage of the Skin is disordered, when these Minute Glands are overcharged with so great a quantity of gross serous Liquor, soli∣citing the Nervous Fibrils to an Evacuation, which is suppressed by the obstruction of the Excretory Vessels relating to the Glands, so that the serous glandulous Humour being stopped from its due Passages, is forced to recoil into the extreamities of the Veins, and imported from thence by smaller and greater branches through the Vena Cava, into the right Chamber of the Heart, as being by its brisk contractions dashed against the Walls of this no∣ble Engine, which disperseth the depraved Vital Liquor, into all the aparti∣ments of the Body.

Whereupon the Blood being associated with this troublesome confaederate, repairing to the Heart, doth so highly aggravate it, that in order to its own defence, the Heart is forced to protrude it downward, through the descendent Trunk of the Aorta, and emulgent Arteries (the branches of it) into the Glands of the Kidneys, where this Serous Liquor (transmitted at a great di∣stance from the Cutaneous Glands) is secerned from the Blood, and dischar∣ged by the urinary Tubes, into the Pelvis and Ureters.

But that we have recourse to the Cutaneous Distempers, from whence we have made some Digression: These noisom breakings out in Ulcerous Tu∣mours, proceed from many Causes, producing the ill affections of the Serous Liquor (an inmate of the Cutaneous Glands) in the loss of its native puri∣ty upon many accounts.

First, * 1.4 When the Glandulous Liquor entring in a new association with the Serous, derived from the Blood, is impelled by the Capillary Arteries, into the Glands of the Skin; where the foul mass of Blood is depurated from its grosser Recrements, which impart Fermentative indispositions to the Glan∣dulous Liquor, as being Incorporated, with the watry Saline Juice, newly com∣municated from the Purple Liquor, which give it an unnatural Effervescence, whence arise various Coagulations of the serous Recrements, contained in the Cutaneous Glands, producing sometimes Pustles, other times skurfie Flakes, disgracing the elegant Politeness, and lovely colour of the Skin.

The second cause may be the access of this Scabby Ferment, * 1.5 into the Cuta∣neous Glands, where it being stagnant, is not able on the one side to be dis∣charged outwardly through the Excretory Ducts of the Skin, nor inwardly to be received on the other into the extreamities of the Veins, so that by its long deteinment in the Papillary Glands, the extravasated Liquor, doth not only assume a psorous Indisposition, but also a vitriolic corrosive qua∣lity, whence arise divers asperities of the Skin, * 1.6 caused by various eruptions of this depraved Matter, breaking out into Wheals or Pimples; rendring the amiable surface of the Body unpleasant to the Eye, proceeding from a matter putrescent in the ambient parts of the Body, where in a long Stag∣nation, it acquireth a kind of septic quality, corroding the Skin, and neigh∣bouring fleshy parts, affecting them with the horrid diseases of Leprous Scurfs, and Cancerous Ulcers, which move a great compassion in the condo∣ling Spectator.

And not only this irksome disease of the Itch, springeth from an intrinsick Cause, the depraved quality of the Glandulous Liquor, derived from the Stagnation of it, and from the impurities of the Blood imparted to it in mo∣tion, but also from an outward procatartick cause by Contagion, wherein the secret miasmes are most readily conveighed from some Diseased Person, through the Pores of the Skin of one Person, to the Pores of another, there∣by infecting the Glandulous Liquor, lodged near the surface of the Body. * 1.7

And this virulent Infection derived from ichorous Pimples, is most easily communicated from body to body, by the quick operation of the Contagious Ferment, consisting in subtle Particles, always streaming out of the Body; and by the indisposition of the Glandulous Liquor, receptive of these infecti∣ous steams, proceeding from a neighbouring diseased Body, making the like impressions in another, in which the Liquor of the Cutaneous Glands, be∣ing made up of Nervous and Serous Liquor (flowing from the Nerves and Arteries) is compounded of different subtle Particles, very obnoxious to Fermentation.

So that the active Effluvia of this Contagious Distemper, do freely insi∣nuate themselves through the minute meatus of the Exterior Skin, into the Cutaneous Glands, and from thence received into the lesser and greater Venous Tubes, and into the right Cistern of the Heart, and then through the Pulmonary Arteries and Veins, into the left Ventricle of the Heart, and afterward impelled through greater and lesser arterial Channels, into all the parts of the Body, and therein imparting from the Center to the Circumfe∣rence, this nasty contagious Ferment with the Blood, into the Cutaneous Glands, where the infected Serous and Nutritious Liquor is secerned from the more pure parts of the Blood, and emitted through the Excretory Ves∣sels to the surface of the inward Skin; and one Particle crowding another forward, do raise up the outward Skin into Pustles, full of purulent Matter, which being Concreted, is turned into numerous Scabs.

Lastly, The Leprosie is a Cutaneous Disease, proceeding from a Mass of Blood, highly corrupted with virulent Miasmes, and Acide, Saline, and Sulphureous Particles, which though moving in association with the Vital Liquor, yet cannot be so far subdued, as broke into small Particles, and vo∣latilized by frequent Circulations; that these Acide, Saline, and Sulphureous Atomes, might be assimilated into Blood, whereupon the Heart being highly aggrieved with these Recrements, impelleth them with the Purple Liquor, into the substance of the Cutaneous Glands; wherein the Serous are secerned from the Alimentary Particles of the Blood, which is returned by the Veins, and the watry, impraegnated with degenerated Saline and Sulphureous parts, are conveyed by the Excretory Ducts, to the surface of the ••kin, where the most Liquid parts of these Recrements being evaporated, the acide saline do Coagulate like Tarter, incrusting the Skin which being rubb'd or scratch'd, the concreted saline parts fall off like scales of Fish, and the serous parts ouse out of the Skin, which being dried up, thereupon follow new saline ac∣cretions, casing the Skin with another Crust.

Notes

• * 1.1

  The Itch is an eruption of Matter into Pimples seat∣ed in the skin, derived from watry and sa∣line Particles.
• * 1.2

  The matter of this Disease are salt Parti∣cles, degene∣rating into a Fluor.
• * 1.3

  The gross and salt parts of the Blood do produce a Fe∣ver, by ob∣structing the Pores of the Skin, and hin∣dring a free transpiration.
• * 1.4

  The Glandu∣lous Liquor gaineth a Fer∣mentation as mixing with the Blood.
• * 1.5

  The Scabby Ferment stag∣nant in the Cutaneous Glands, assu∣meth a pso∣rous dispositi∣on, and after breaketh out into wheals.
• * 1.6

  This Ferment acquireth a Septick Indi∣sposition by a long stagnan∣cy in the Cu∣taneous Glands, pro∣ducing a Le∣prous Scurf.
• * 1.7

  This psorous Disease is im∣parted by contagi∣on from subtle parts streaming out of the Body, and making the like im∣pressions in another as being recei∣ved into the Pores of the Skin.