Medicine: Show of Hands

Skin eruptions on the hands are responsible for much misery, and for a big share of a dermatologist's practice nowadays. In the A.M.A.'s Archives of Dermatology and Syphilology, two doctors identify the typical patient: "A young matron, who must keep house, cook, wash dishes, do the laundry, raise her children, and hold her husband [and] whose occupation is inherently one of the most hazardous with which the dermatologist commonly has to deal."

There are ample reasons for all the hand trouble, report Drs. Richard L. Sutton Jr. and Samuel Ayres Jr. The hands are...

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