A handbook of diseases of women : including diseases of the bladder and urethra / by F. Winckel ; authorised translation edited by Theophilus Parvin.

  • Winckel, F. (Franz), 1837-1912.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A handbook of diseases of women : including diseases of the bladder and urethra / by F. Winckel ; authorised translation edited by Theophilus Parvin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    becomes apparent, the contents thoroughly pressed out, and the wound dressed antiseptically. In case of furuncles the hair should be shaved off, and soap plaster, warm sitz-baths, or emol- lient cataplasms used. Folliculitis is best treated by washing the parts with solution of carbonate of potassium. According to Behrend a radical cure may be effected by cauterizing the parts with lunar caustic. Here it becomes necessary to allude to another form of this affection which, though it is not simple vulvitis, still cannot be included under the exanthematous or infectious forms, viz., vulvitis diabetica. I have seen this variety very often, and in individual cases have been able to observe it for a number of years, until the death of the patient. Though the diabetes is here the more important ailment, and, as this is incurable, we may not hope to entirely remove the vulvitis caused by it, still the continual itch- ing and burning, the hypersecretion, sleeplessness, pain, difficult defecation, and loss of appetite so reduce the patient, that the local affection without doubt hastens the fatal termination. The sufferings of such patients are really deplorable. All parts of the vulva are of a coppery red color, much swollen, in places as though powdered, in others moist, with hemorrhages here and there from the constant scratching. The tissues are dry, brittle, wrinkled, and rigid. As a rule the affection soon creeps into the folds of the groin, and over the raons veneris, or yet more frequently into the fold of the nates and around the anus. With improvement of the condition, the skin becomes paler or bluish-gray, exfoliations occur in places, and the fissures heal. But, as a rule, this does not proceed to a complete cure, the process passes to another part, or there is a temporary improve- ment corresponding to a better general condition of the patient, followed by a return of the trouble with increased severity. I have seen the greatest intensity in the symptoms in patients who had 4 to 5 per cent, of sugar in their urine, and one case in par- ticular I attended for years, a woman in whose family there were many cases of diabetes, and whose husband had died with this disease. The diagnosis is so simple that often a glance at the vulva, in the condition above described, suffices to call attention to the