Acute cutaneous symptoms can cause a psychic upset to the same degree as that observed when other organs of the body become ill, perhaps even more so, because the skin is an organ of special sense and gives rise to multiple sensory stimuli. A person at an outing may win all the prizes, but that night he can be pacing the floor, so mentally harassed that he calls out for relief from symptoms of dermatitis due to plants. The itching and burning can so torment him that he is not responsible for his actions. Patients thus afflicted will apply remedy after remedy, blindly groping for relief. In view of this panic-like state which may seize persons with acute cutaneous symptoms, it is their privilege that remedies for the skin in the family medicine chest and purchased by them be reasonably safe. Evidence will be presented that many of these remedies are not safe, some of them dangerous to use. In our series of 202 cases of dermatitis venenata due to plants, 152 patients had applied a remedy or remedies that caused acute complications, and certain chemicals in these changed acute dermatitis into chronic. An era of advanced therapeutics is marred by dermatologie treatments which caused 75 per cent of these patients to be improperly and unwisely man¬ aged.1The past treatment patch test2 was used routinely in this investigation. Each patient was asked to bring in the remedies that he had used. Checking over the bags, baskets, satchels and boxes laden with preparations for the skin proved to us the urgent need for a renaissance in dermatologie therapeutics. The entire gamut of vehicles was jumbled together : tinctures, lotions, creams, powders and salves. The colors of the chemicals trans¬ formed the skin into weird patterns as if it had been prepared for an Indian war dance. A barbarous custom is being imitated by dermatologie treatments. The con¬ tainers of some of the medicaments had all but disinte¬ grated. Often the stoppers had lost their threads, were mere parchment shells or had become soft and pitted, their decomposition products admixed with the prepara¬ tion. Some of the tinctures showed a slimy flocculation. The lotions looked like old white shoe polish bottles and smelled of phenol. A few were marked inflammable. One bottle, when the stopper which the chemicals had cemented into place was pried loose, popped, and the contents, looking angry and menacing, spurted forth. After this experience we smelled the remedies from the side first. The powders were over everything. Some were caked or lumpy ; others had attacked the sifting holes or plugged them up. The salves were colored green, blue, pink, red, brown, black or yellow. They slithered around in the jars or tins with the usual outside smearing. Their consistency was variable ; some were uniform, others granulated, speckled or marbleized. The ingredients did not affect glass, but the tin containers and plastic tops were honeycombed, pitted and discolored.No flies were seen ; these ointments were too potent.One foul salve was more than twenty years old. The pa...
