ERYSIPELAS (Lat., from Gk. epucrireXas, from Om-, erysi-, variant of epv0p6s, erythros, red, Lat. tether, rufus, Eng. red. Ger. rot, Ir. rued, ()Church Slay. rudrii, Skt. rudhira, red TAX% ',elle, skin. Lat. petits, Eng. fell, Ger. Fell, Lith. plere, skin), or SAINT ANTHONY'S FIRE. An in flammatory disease of the skin and subcutane ous tissues, attended by diffused redness and swelling of the part affected, and in the end either by desquamation or by vesication of the cuticle, or scarf-skin. in the milder forms, and by suppuration of the deeper parts in the severer varieties of the disease (phlegmonous erysipelas). Erysipelas affects, in a large proportion of in stances, the face and head; it is apt to be at tended with fever, and often with delirium and meningitis. Severe or phlegmonous erysipelas is apt to be succeeded by protracted and exhaust ing and sometimes by diseases of the bones or inflammations of the internal or gans. Erysipelas is frequently an epidemic dis•
ease in surgical hospitals, especially on the field of battle. (See EPIDEMIC.) It. is dangerously infectious. The treatment is supportive; tonics, such as iron, strychnine, and quinine; easily digested diet, principally of milk: aseptic dress ings. and occasionally incisions in deep erysipelas with tension or suppUration. It was at one time thought that a special coccus, called by Fehleisen the Streptococcus erysipelatis, was always asso ciated with the disease. It is now believed that the Streptococcus pyogenes is the causative germ. The presence of the bacteria in the subcutaneous tissues causes redness of the overlying skin and more or less infiltration of the tissues with serum, or with serum and pus. See ICHTHYOL.