130 ECZEMA SIMPLEX. 



Eczema is a very common disease in all our domestic 

 animals, but especially in the horse and dog. It is non- 

 contagious, always sporadic, usually due to peculiarity of 

 feeding, and very commonly dependent on an oat or oatmeal 

 diet. It cannot therefore be confounded with the epizootic 

 affection so readily communicated from the sick to the 

 healthy, and from animals of one species to those of another. 

 The common skin affection, eczema, is constantly recurring 

 in the same animal, whereas, like all other eruptive fevers, 

 epizootic aphtha occurs, as a rule, but once in an animal's 

 lifetime. Eczema is one of the most common of indige- 

 nous skin diseases in the United Kingdom, whereas the 

 vesicular murrain is entirely of foreign origin. We cannot 

 well have broader distinctions between two diseases than 

 between simple vesicular eruptions of the skin and that 

 disease which has been most improperly termed eczema 

 epizootica. 



There are three forms of eczema that I have seen in the 

 dog, and they consist in eczema simplex, eczema rubrum, 

 and eczema impetiginodes. In the horse simple eczema is 

 seen in its well-marked characters, and chronic eczema or 

 psoriasis in the cases of 'mallenders' and ' sallenders.' 



ECZEMA SIMPLEX. 



In man this disease has been termed ' humid tetter/ and in 

 the lower animals it constitutes one of the many mangy affec- 

 tions. It is found to commence usually as a local affection, 

 and in animals that, up to the time of manifesting irri- 

 tation, commonly about the back and thighs, appear in per- 

 fect health. It is unassociated with fever, and we can only 

 notice cluster after cluster of minute vesicles develop and 

 dry up on the sore skin, or discharge the liquid that seems 

 to favour an extension of the disorder. The hairs are rubbed 



