EXTRACTS AND ABSTRACTS FROM FOREIGN JOURNALS. 275 



rounded by the whitish body. The figure of this body, as well as the 

 relation it bore to the hair, placed it beyond doubt that it was a hair- 

 follicle ; and it differed from a normal hair-follicle only in the circum- 

 stance, that it was much more delicate, and appeared as if it had been 

 macerated, so that by moderate traction it was readily divided into seve- 

 ral portions. Sometimes, also, I observed parts of sebaceous follicles 

 in connection with the sac. In smaller acne pustules I found commonly 

 only one hair-follicle, but in the larger, several. Similar whitish bodies 

 were not observable in the matter expressed from the acne pustules ; 

 and I after remarked, when the whole of the contents were brought 

 under the miscroscope, among them one or more hairs, which were 

 sometimes entwined together, or rolled up in a spiral form. 



Although these facts rendered it probable that acne originates in an 

 affection of the hair- follicles, still, on the other hand, there was reason 

 to suppose, that the inflammation which gave rise to the pustule, com- 

 menced in the true tissue of the cutis : and that by the occurrence of 

 the suppuration, the connection of the hair-follicles with the skin was 

 destroyed and thrown off when the pustule burst. 



One of the morbid affections of the skin, differing from the pustules of 

 acne, appeared to me calculated to throw some light on the subject. 

 There are frequently observable, especially in those who are subjects 

 of acne, black specks on the surface of the skin, which are caused by 

 the accumulation of sebaceous matter in small follicles of the skin, and 

 which are known under the name of maggots (Comedones Acne punctata.) 



A real pustule of acne is not unfrequently seen to be formed in con- 

 sequence of inflammation around one or more of these little bodies, and 

 not unfrequently we may recognize also, on pustules of acne, the com- 

 mencement of which may not have been observed, by the presence of 

 one or more black points, that they also must have arisen in a similar 

 manner. Should this demonstrate that the Comedones are in some way 

 altered hair-follicles, the conclusion becomes manifestly more obvious, 

 that the pustules of acne originate in disease of those follicles. Accord- 

 ing to the opinion of many authors, these maggot-like bodies consist in 

 an abnormal accumulation of sebaceous matter in the fat- secreting 

 glands of the skin, which have been hitherto considered as simple sacs. 



These glands, however, open directly on the surface of the skin only 

 on those parts which are entirely without hair, as the glans and nymphae ; 

 in other parts of the body, their orifices are always in connection with 

 hair-follicles : at least this is the result of all late observations, and in 

 my researches on the skin of the face, I have not been able in any case 

 to find a fat follicle independent of this connection. Where such dis- 

 tinct gland has appeared to exist, the total want of orifice, or at least 

 of one reaching the surface of the skin, has shown that the hair-follicle 

 belonging to it had been cut away. 



As all this rendered it certain that the little follicles in which the ac- 

 cumulations of sebaceous matter forming the Comedones are found, could 

 not be the fat glands ; so the following observations proved them to be 

 in reality hair-follicles. 



Earlier investigations had informed us, that the little expressed masses 

 consisted of minute vesicles, many of which are filled with sebaceous 



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