[Read before the Philadelphia Country Medical Society, October 17, 1883.]
Psoriasis is one of the commoner skin diseases met with in this country. The statistics of the American Dermatological Association show that it occurs in the proportion of about 6 per cent, in all diseases of the skin encountered. Daily experience would seem to indicate a still more frequent occurrence, because the affection is a disfiguring and annoying one, and therefore patients are more inclined to seek relief, and also because it is a stubborn disease and greatly prone to relapse. The history of a single case will often extend over many years, and bring it under the observation of a number of different physicians.
It is because of the comparative frequency with which psoriasis is met and its stubborness to treatment, that I have selected it as the subject of my remarks this evening. Having had a good deal