Injuries of nerves and their consequences - Reflex Sympathetic ...

158 INJURIES OF NERVES.
tightly drawn over the subjacent tissues.
The surface of
all the affected part was glossy, and shining as though it
had been skillfully varnished. !N"othing more curious
than these red and shinino- tissues can be conceived of.
In most of them, the part was devoid of wrinkles and
perfectly free from hair. Mr. Paget's comparison of chilblains
is one which we often used to describe these appearances
;
but in some instances we have been more
strikingly reminded of the characters of certain large,
thin, and highly-polished scars.
" Where a single nerve, as the ulnar, had been attacked,
the described state of skin was seen only in its ultimate
distribution ;
but in other instances of more extensive
nerve injury, the central palm suffered, or a single finger,
or the pulps of all of them. In others, the palm or
fingers were dotted with islets of thin and red and glossy
skin. The dorsum of the hand, as a rule, was in that
member the part least subject to the alteration, while the
dorsum of the foot was in that region the part most liable
to suffer. Do the greater functional endowments of the
palm of the hand, as compared to the sole of the foot,
account for this preference
'^Eczema.— A ?
wqvj constant feature of this state of skin
was the occurrence of eczematous eruptions, which appeared
as minute vesicles thickly scattered over the thin
and tender cutis, or else showed themselves in successive
crops of larger vesicles on the skin about the altered
parts, with usually a preference for the portions which
lay nearer the trunk.
"In some patients this symptom was absent; in others,
it was never wholly lost, but varied in amount ;
while in
a small number it came and went, being absent for weeks
at a time, and then returning. It was also remarkable in
these latter, that recurrence of the eruption gave ease to
certain painful symptoms to be presently described, or,