76 THE MICROSCOPE. 



>i (UtorlaX gtp'axtxtunt 



THE MICROSCOPE IN SKIN DISEASES. 



SINCE the appearance of our June number, and with it the article 

 by Professor Yemans on the diagnosis of skin diseases by the 

 microscope, we have received some scrapings from the cutaneous 

 urface of a patient who had a trouble that had defied about all the 

 known remedies in the materia medica. Being discouraged at the 

 failure of this treatment the attending physician forwarded by mail 

 some of the scales removed from the patient by scraping the surface 

 lightly with a scalpel. A small amount of this dust was placed upon 

 a glass slide, a thin cover applied, and a drop of distilled water 

 added. The specimen was examined first with a power of four 

 hundred diameters and later with one of about a thousand 

 diameters. There was no mistake about this specimen. Scattered 

 among these horny cells of the epideimis there were seen long, 

 wavy, branched, filamentous cells, with large groups of minute 

 spores. Each spore was exceedingly small, quite highly refractive, 

 and circular in shape. A weak solution of acetic acid, one-half per 

 cent, solution, caused the epidermal cells to become more transpar- 

 ent without affecting the fungus. Here we had the unmistakable 

 fungus, inicrosporon furfur, and the patient was troubled with the 

 phytosis versicolor of Piffard, or X\\q phfhciriasis versicolor of Fox. 



Here again is one of those peculiar cases where the microscope, 

 and with positiveness the microscope alone, can be of the utmost 

 value and really indisi>ensable. Just one line" of treatment, in such 

 cases, is indicated; viz, an anti-parisitic one, antl under this treat- 

 ment the disease mu.st yield. 



Without the microscope only one plan is left in such cases. It 

 is the plan that was pursued in a case under the charge of an 

 acquaintance of ours. 



The patient had been treated, for two months, for erysipelas 

 without the slightest improvement. Not knowing what else to do 

 our medical friend prescribed a free application of sulphur ointment, 

 for which there was a good demand in this particular locality. The 



