698 WALTEE J. HIGHMAN AND JEFFREY C. MICHAEL 



ductio ad absurdum would be offered by attempting to remove milk 

 from a baby's diet to destroy the eczema or the baby. It is almost as 

 ridiculous to blame any single ingredient of the milk when one reflects 

 that there are as many schools as there are ingredients. In twelve years 

 of observation, unhypiiotized by the siren notes of the literature, one of us 

 (Highman) has failed to see a single case of infantile eczema benefited, 

 to say nothing of "cured," by modifying the diet of an afflicted baby. 

 But the fact remains that most babies "outgrow" the eczema at about two 

 years of age, or when they get a more liberal diet. This compels the 

 conclusion that, after all, something in the milk diet is at fault, even 

 though the fact remains unestablished. 



If the difficulty is so great in infantile eczema, how much greater 

 is it in adults to relate the disease to food, for so many more foods here 

 come into consideration. The evidence is largely furnished by patients, 

 and uncritically accepted as valid. Pickles cause it in one man, but 

 cucumbers with vinegar do not; eggs in another, but not custard; steak 

 in another, but not roast beef. And so it goes. It would look as if 

 reason had been stampeded by superstition. 



In urticaria, angioneurotic edema, and perhaps in prurigo, however, 

 definite foods can often be demonstrated as the cause, as in Schloss' egg 

 albumin cases, Smith's buckwheat case, and in our own series in which 

 tomatoes, carrots, salmon, veal and other foods were incriminated. Pro- 

 hibiting the food cures the disease. 



Combining alimentary and dietetic causes may be considered the ele- 

 ment in proteid putrefaction. Von Noorden(/) regards evidence such as 

 the presence of ethereal sulphates in the urine insufficient but is inter- 

 ested in Lassar's observations on the use of yeast in furunculosis. Although 

 yeast has been widely advocated as an intestinal antiseptic (Brocq, La 

 Presse medicale, Vol. VII, No. 45, 1899, and others), the idea is fanciful, 

 particularly when one regards the efficacy of vaccines, the alleged putre- 

 faction remaining. Unna once used ichthyol for this purpose, and after 

 Metchnikoff succeeded where Ponce de Leon failed, the civilized world 

 gorged itself with lactic acid bacilli, and three more milestones in medical 

 superstition were smilingly left behind. 



Itosacea is provoked by foods that are too highly seasoned, or eaten 

 at too high a temperature ; by condiments, excess carbohydrate ingestion, 

 tea and alcohol. Probably, in the last analysis, the underlying factor, as 

 already indicated, is an organic disturbance, made worse by indiscreet 

 eating. In a lesser degree the same applies to acne vulgaris, but the real 

 cause of this disturbance is still unknown, and is more likely connected 

 with the biological upheaval incidental to puberty itself. 



No discussion of ingested poisons would be complete without reference 

 to drug eruptions. lodids, bromids, arsenic, mercury, phenolphthalein, 

 copaiba, digitalis, morphin, quinin, antipyrin, and its associates, and 



