414 TRANSACTIONS OF THE
ills on the duration of life, and of Drs. S. D. Gross* and R. W. Taylorf on the relation of syphilis to health and to life, must be quoted.
Turning to our medical schools we note that in 1875 the University of Louisville created a professorship of skin diseases, to which Dr. L. P. Yandell was elected, while in the same year Dr. F. A. Spalding was appointed lecturer on skin diseases in the Detroit Medical College.
In this year Dr. Piffard published "a new clinical classification of skin diseases."! But little interest had before been manifested in this subject. Worcester in his work on diseases of the skin, pub- lished in 1845, adhered to the classification of Willan, which he modified, however, by dividing the diseases into two great classes, namely, moist and dry, a step which he conceived would be of practical value. Damon, in his book on the "neuroses of the skin," published in 1868, gave his views on the subject of cla.ssifi- cation, and divided the dermatoses into four classes, as follows: I. Neuroses; II- Functional diseases of the cutaneous glands; III. Inflammations; IV. Structural lesions of the skin, including path- ological new formations. We find no record in our literature of any further attempt at classification until we meet the scheme of Piffard, which is so much at variance with the views of other derm- atologists that the outlines may briefly be given. The diseases are placed in five groups, the first being designated diathetic. This is subdivided into several classes, one of which is termed " Rheu- mides," the word conveying the idea of exudation, and equivalent to the Dartres, or Herpetid^es, of the French. Here are found eczema, psoriasis, and similar diseases. As diathetic diseases, moreover, we find a list including syphilis, leprosy, scrofula, and ichthyosis. Group II. consists of *' non-diathetic" affections; as, for example, the eruptive fevers. Group III. is composed of "reflex diseases," where are found, for example, acne and urticaria. Group IV. com- prises "local diseases," as the parasitic affections; while Group V. includes "affections of an uncertain nature," where are placed ele- phantiasis Arabum, lichen, moUuscum, and other diseases equally dissimilar in nature and in clinical features. The author claimed that the classification was a natural or etiological one, but, without entering into discussion on this point, it seems as a whole to be lacking in consistency.
In the spring of the following year was published by the same author, "an elementary treatise on diseases of the skin."§ This was the first strictly original treatise on the subject from an American pen, the book of Worcester, already referred to, being but little more than a compilation, while the several volumes of Damon were monographs only. With the scope as well as with the subject
- Louisville and Richmond Med. Jour., Jan. 1875.
t N. Y. Med. Rec, March 13 and" April 17, 1875. X Arch, of Derm., vol. i. No. 3 (1875). I New York, 1876.
