Furunculus (Synonyms: Furuncle; Boil.)
Define furunculus.
Furunculus, or boil, is an acute, deep-seated, inflammatory, circumscribed, rounded or more or less acuminated, firm, painful formation, usually terminating in central suppuration.
Describe the symptoms and course.
A boil begins as a small, rounded or imperfec
In some cases sympathetic constitutional disturbance is noticed.
What is a blind boil?
A sluggish boil exhibiting little, if any, tendency to point or break.
What is furunculosis?
Furunculosis is that condition in which boils, singly or in crops, continue to appear, irregularly, for weeks or months.
State the etiology of furuncle.
A depraved state of the general health is often to be considered as a predisposing factor. Persistent furunculosis is not infrequent in diabetes mellitus. The immediate exciting cause is the entrance into the follicle of a microbe, the staphylococcus pyogenes aureus. It is not improbable, however, that boils may also be due to other pus-producing organisms.
Workmen in paraffin oils or other petroleum products often present numerous furuncles and cutaneous abscesses. Conditions favoring a persistent miliaria have also a causative influence, especially observed in infants and young children. In these latter, especially among the poorer classes, sluggish boils or subcutaneous abscesses about the scalp in hot weather, are not at all infrequent.
What is the pathology of furuncle?
A boil is an inflammatory formation having its starting point in a sebaceous-gland, sweat-gland, or hair-follicle. The core, or central slough, is composed of pus and of the tissue of the gland in which it had its origin.
How would you distinguish a boil from a carbuncle?
A boil is comparatively small, rounded or acuminate, and has but one point of suppuration; a carbuncle is large, flattened, intensely painful, often with grave systemic disturbance, and has, moreover, several centres of suppuration.
State the prognosis.
When occurring in crops (furunculosis) the affection is often rebellious; recovery, however, finally resulting.
What is the method of treatment of furunculus?
If there be but one lesion, with no tendency to the appearance of others, local treatment alone is usually employed. If, however, several or more are present, or if there is a tendency to successive development, both constitutional and local measures are demanded.
Name the internal remedies employed.
Such nutrients and tonics as cod-liver oil, malt, quinine, strychnia, iron and arsenic; in some instances calx sulphurata, one-tenth- to [Pg 70] one-fourth-grain doses every three or four hours has been thought to be of service. Brewers' yeast has been recently again brought forward as a remedy of value.
What is the external treatment?
Local treatment consists in the beginning, with the hope of aborting the lesion, of the application of carbolic acid to the central portion, or the use of a twenty-five-per-cent. ointment of ichthyol applied as a plaster:—
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Emp. plumbi, ..................................... ʒij
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Or the injection of a five-per-cent. solution of carbolic acid into the apex of the boil may be tried if the formation is more advanced. If suppuration is fully established, evacuation of the contents, followed by antiseptic applications, constitutes the best method.
A saturated solution of boric acid or a lotion of corrosive sublimate (one to three grains to the ounce) applied to the immediate neighborhood of the boil or boils tends to prevent the formation of new lesions. Frequent washing of the parts with soap and water or tincture of green soap and water is also a preventive measure of value. In repeatedly infected areas, mild exposures to x-rays, at intervals of a few days, will often prove of curative value.