It is quite natural that such cases as this should attract the attention of the laity, and often find report in newspapers. The following is a lay-report of a "snake-boy" in Shepardstown, Va.:--"Jim Twyman, a colored boy living with his foster-parents ten miles from this place, is a wonder. He is popularly known as the "snake-boy." Mentally he is as bright as any child of his age, and he is popular with his playmates, but his physical peculiarities are probably unparalleled. His entire skin, except the face and hands, is covered with the scales and markings of a snake. These exceptions are kept so by the constant use of Castile soap, but on the balance of his body the scales grow abundantly. The child sheds his skin every year. It causes him no pain or illness. From the limbs it can be pulled in perfect shape, but off the body it comes in pieces. His feet and hands are always cold and clammy. He is an inordinate eater, sometimes spending an hour at a meal, eating voraciously all the time, if permitted to do so. After these gorgings he sometimes sleeps two days. There is a strange suggestion of a snake in his face, and he can manipulate his tongue, accompanied by hideous hisses, as viciously as a serpent."Under the name of dermatitis exfoliativa neonatorum, Ritter has described an eruption which he observed in the foundling asylum at Prague, where nearly 300 cases occurred in ten years.
According to Crocker it begins in the second or third week of life, and occasionally as late as the fifth week, with diffuse and universal scaling, which may be branny or in laminae like pityriasis rubra, and either dry or with suffusion beneath the epidermis. Sometimes it presents flaccid bullae like pemphigus foliaceus, and then there are crusts as well as scales, with rhagades on the mouth, anus, etc.; there is a total absence of fever or other general symptoms. About 50 per cent die of marasmus and loss of heat, with or without diarrhea. In those who recover the surface gradually becomes pale and the desquamation ceases. Opinions differ regarding it, some considering it of septic origin, while others believe it to be nothing but pemphigus foliaceus. Kaposi regards it as an aggravation of the physiologic exfoliation of the new-born. Elliott of New York reports two cases with a review of the subject, but none have been reported in England. Cases on the Continent have been described by Billard, von Baer, Caspary, those already mentioned, and others.
The name epidemic exfoliative dermatitis has been given to an epidemic skin-disease which made its appearance in 1891 in England; 425 cases were collected in six institutions, besides sporadic cases in private houses.
In 1895, in London, some photographs and sketches were exhibited that were taken from several of the 163 cases which occurred in the Paddington Infirmary and Workhouse, under the care of Dr.
Savill, from whose negatives they were prepared. They were arranged in order to illustrate the successive stages of the disorder. The eruption starts usually with discrete papules, often in stellate groups, and generally arranged symmetrically when on the limbs. These become fused into crimson, slightly raised maculae, which in severe cases become further fused into red thickened patches, in which the papules can still be felt and sometimes seen. Vesicles form, and exudation occurs in only about one-third of the cases. Desquamation of the epidermis is the invariable feature of all cases, and it usually commences between the fourth and eighth days. In severe cases successive layers of the epidermis are shed, in larger or smaller scales, throughout the whole course of the malady. One-half of the epidermis shed from the hand of a patient is exhibited in this collection.
Of sphaceloderma, or gangrene of the skin, probably the most interesting is Raynaud's disease of symmetric gangrene, a vascular disorder, which is seen in three grades of intensity:
there is local syncope, producing the condition known as dead-fingers or dead-toes, and analogous to that produced by intense cold; and local asphyxia, which usually follows local syncope, or may develop independently. Chilblains are the mildest manifestation of this condition. The fingers, toes, and ears, are the parts usually affected. In the most extreme degree the parts are swollen, stiff, and livid, and the capillary circulation is almost stagnant; this is local or symmetric gangrene, the mildest form of which follows asphyxia. Small areas of necrosis appear on the pads of the fingers and of the toes; also at the edges of the ears and tip of the nose. Occasional symmetric patches appear on the limbs and trunk, and in extensive cases terminate in gangrene. Raynaud suggested that the local syncope was produced by contraction of the vessels; the asphyxia is probably caused by a dilatation of the capillaries and venules, with persistence of the spasm of the arterioles. According to Osler two forms of congestion occur, which may be seen in adjacent fingers, one of which may be swollen, intensely red, and extremely hot; the other swollen, cyanotic, and intensely cold. Sometimes all four extremities are involved, as in Southey's case, in a girl of two and a half in whom the process began on the calves, after a slight feverish attack, and then numerous patches rapidly becoming gangrenous appeared on the backs of the legs, thighs, buttocks, and upper arms, worse where there was pressure; the child died thirty-two hours after the onset. The whole phenomenon may be unilateral, as in Smith's case, quoted by Crocker,--in a girl of three years in whom the left hand was cold and livid, while on the right there was lividity, progressing to gangrene of the fingers and of the thumb up to the first knuckles, where complete separation occurred.