never the source of any particular discomfort. They develop slowly and last indefinitely. Each begins as a minute elevation of a whitish color, and gradually the flattened summit and umbilication develops. When of full size the walls are sometimes traversed by fine blood vessels which give the tumor a pinkish appearance.
The disease is often called molluscum contagiosum, and, though its contagious character is not always apparent, it has
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Fig. 56.—Molluscum.
been known to affect several in a family or in a ward of a children's hospital, and attempts at artificial inoculation have sometimes been successful. It is doubtless of microbic origin, but the conditions favoring its development are as yet obscure. It is especially liable to affect children of a poorer class, and hence is much more common in dispensary than in private practice. Damp and crowded dwellings seem to favor its development, and in dispensary practice I have known a number of
