h general numbness and tingling; the urine then
began to deposit a thick sediment. About the third week from the first
attack the cuticle appeared elevated in many places, and in eight or
ten days afterward became so loose as to admit of its easy removal in
large flakes. The cuticle of the hands, from the wrists to the fingers'
ends, came off like a glove. The patient was never disposed to sweat,
and when it was attempted to force perspiration he grew worse; nor was
he much at ease until his urine deposited a sediment, after which he
felt little inconvenience but from the rigidity of the skin. The nails
were not detached as in the previous case.

It is quite natural that such cases as this should attract the
attention of the laity, and often find report in newspapers. The
following is a lay-report of a "snake-boy" in Shepardstown, Va.:--

"Jim Twyman, a colored boy living with his foster-parents ten miles
from this place, is a wonder. He is popularly known as the "snake-boy."
Mentally he is as bright as any child of his age, and he is popular
with his playmates, but his physical peculiarities are probably
unparalleled. His entire skin, except the face and hands, is covered
with the scales and markings of a snake. These exceptions are kept so
by the constant use of Castile soap, but on the balance of his body the
scales grow abundantly. The child sheds his skin every year. It causes
him no pain or illness. From the limbs it can be pulled in perfect
shape, but off the body it comes in pieces. His feet and hands are
always cold and clammy. He is an inordinate eater, sometimes spending
an hour at a meal, eating voraciously all the time, if permitted to do
so. After these gorgings he sometimes sleeps two days. There is a
strange suggestion of a snake in his face, and he can manipulate his
tongue, accompanied by hideous hisses, as viciously as a serpent."

Under the name of dermatitis exfoliativa neonatorum, Ritter has
described an eruption which he observed in the foundling asylum at
Prague, where nearly 300 cases occurred in ten years. According to
Crocker it begins in the second or third week of life, and occasionally
as late as the fifth week, with diffuse and universal scaling, which
may be branny or in laminae like pityriasis rubra, and either dry or
with suffusion beneath the epidermis. Sometimes it presents flaccid
bullae like pemphigus foliaceus, and then there are crusts as well as
scales, with rhagades on the mo