STUDIES IN ASTHMA

Abstract

Current textbooks show that the diagnosis of eczema has been applied to a variety of skin conditions which depend on a number of causes. Recent progress has made it possible to remove many cases from the old classification of eczema by showing that the skin lesions depend on such local causes as chemical irritation, or on parasitic conditions, as ring worm or epidermophytosis. Eczema is becoming better defined. The local lesion frequently depends on some fundamental cause in the body as a whole, and is not necessarily a local disease of the skin itself. The more general causes include toxic, metabolic and allergic factors. Toxic causes include those in which the eczema depends on a well recognized focus of infection and clears when the bad teeth or diseased tonsils or constipation are treated. Under this heading, perhaps, may be grouped those children in whom eczema depends on a faulty digestion,