TREATMENT OF FAVUS. 183 



favosa, and for having announced that, on a general Estimate, 

 Porrigo scutulala was more easily cured, which latter statement 

 Bazin's experience does not bear out. 



The treatment, according to various writers, is as follows : 

 The head is first to be cleansed ; the crusts are removed by 

 cutting off the hair quite close, and by immersing the head several 

 times in tepid water, and softening the crusts by washing, or by 

 means of poultices (which, according to Lebert, are best made 

 with the aid of a spatula), because the spores are less liable to 

 spread over the whole head covered with hair, than in the case 

 where baths and lotions are employed (a course to be recom- 

 mended only iti the case of restricted favus, and when a second 

 epilation, after the appearance of scabs of favi, has become neces- 

 sary, which course, however, is objectionable on account of the 

 increased pain when the favus has once spread very much). The 

 hair is then freed from lice (if there should be any) by means of 

 mercurial ointment. Gudden, whose chief indication of a suc- 

 cessful treatment consists likewise in the removal of the parasites, 

 chooses remedies which destroy vegetable life without irritating 

 the cutis to a great degree, when rubbed into the capillary de- 

 pressions, and which cause no further inconvenience on being re- 

 sorbed. Gudden, however, knows, as it appears, of no such 

 remedy, for he was even unsuccessful with oil of turpentine. 

 Gudden considers epilation, or, more correctly, the tearing out of 

 the sheath of the root of the hair, as the principal requirement, 

 and prepares consequently for it in the following manner : The 

 hair is cut off, leaving it only a few lines in length, and the scabs 

 removed, during one or two sittings, by the repeated application 

 of warm soap-baths, and by using a soft brush, together with a 

 round writing-quill, if necessary, whilst at the same time the sof- 

 tening of the parts, by applying the oily unctions recommended 

 by Von Hebra, is to be avoided during the following treatment 

 with water. As soon as the skin which has thus been cleansed has, 

 to some extent, become covered again with a new epidermis, it is 

 rubbed with equal parts of croton and olive oil before going to 

 bed, and the parts which have been spared by the fungus secured 

 from its ravages by strips of sticking plaster. The places are 

 carefully examined on the following morning, and rubbed again 

 with a little oil in case the very rapidly produced but also very 

 painful inflammation should be too feeble, and the patient is to wear 

 a double cap of linen, filled with a warm poultice made of oil and 



