Harrogate, whose patient had for some time been wearing stockings of a deep red colour, and suffered from large inflamed blisters. Treatment was given for several weeks, and the stockings discarded, but the trouble remained. Then Dr. Myrtle discovered that she was wearing slippers lined with magenta flannel, which kept up the irritation. After the removal of the lining she soon recovered.
Apropos of this case, Dr. Myrtle remarks that he has had several cases where mauve-dyed articles of clothing have produced great local irritation, which in one or two cases has proved not only painful, but most difficult of cure. Neckties and socks have furnished obstinate forms of an eruption of an herpetic character, the base of each vesicle being painful and greatly inflamed. The eruption has, in appearance and nature, resembled shingles more than anything else, although it is, as far as my observation goes, a distinct form of skin disease.
Dr. Blair, of Goole, has mentioned a case in which a lady, after wearing a pair of bronze-green silk gloves for a day or two, was attacked with a peculiar blistering and swelling of both hands, which increased to such an extent that for three weeks she was compelled to carry her hands in a sling, suffering acute pain, and being unable to feed or dress herself.
Arsenic is used in preparing some aniline dyes, and clothing dyed with them may thus exercise a harmful influence on the wearer. An agitation took place in Germany in 1884 for the purpose of prohibiting their use by parliamentary action; but I do not
