FREQUENCY OF CERTAIN DERMATOSES IN HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS

Abstract

Comparatively little attention has been given in medical examinations of school children to the common dermatoses, and a survey of the literature reveals no statistics on this subject for girls of high school age. The psychologic importance of even trivial cutaneous blemishes to adolescent girls, not to mention the possible debilitating effect of some of these minor dermatoses on the general health, should make them of greater interest to the dermatologist and to the general practitioner than their intrinsic importance might otherwise seem to warrant. The girls examined in this series were between the ages of 13 and 18. Acne, as might be expected, was by far the most prevalent dermatosis, affecting 8.8 per cent of all those examined and comprising 60.3 per cent of all dermatoses found. The complete list of dermatoses, in the order of frequency, is as follows: For purposes of comparison, the dermatoses most frequently found