Whealing Capacity of Skin of Newborn or Young Infant

Experimental studies on the pathophysiological responses of the newborn to injury

“…Thus, Matheson et al (1952) found that although the newborn infant reacted to histamine, applied to scarified skin, with a flare, this was not followed by the formation of a wheal. However, Sulzberger and Baer (1940) demonstrated that the intracutaneous injection of histamine in the newborn infant induced the characteristic triple response (Lewis, 1927). No increase in vascular permeability has been demonstrated after the intradermal injection of histamine in the newborn rabbit (Rocha e Silva, 1940;Little, 1969a) or rat (Majno, 1964;Dunn, 1974), and even the skin vessels of the 3-month-old rabbit are less sensitive to histamine than those of the adult (Oyvin et al, 1967;Little, 1969a).…”