Scabies: Skin Disease of Children

Skin Diseases of Children

Skin disease is a disease associated with a network covering the surface of the body such as skin and is often relatively mild. Despite the relatively minor nature, if it not dealt with seriously, then it can worsen the health condition of infants and children.

Skin disease that found worldwide and can strike both men and women. In some skin diseases such as staphylococcal scalded skin syndrome, more men were attacked than women.

Staphylococcal scalded skin syndrome

Scabies

Scabies is another disorder which is an infection with an animal parasite. While of much the same appearance as lice, the organisms are scarcely visibly to the naked eye. They burrow around within the top layer of the skin and produce itching as the move. The itching is worse at night after the body has become warm in bed. There is sometimes overheated room or the wearing of excessive clothing. Usually there are hundreds or thousands of the parasites on the body before the afflicted individual is aware of the fact that he has a skin disease. If one member of a family is affected, the whole family is likely to be.

Scabies of Children

The disorder is usually contracted through occupying a bed with an infected individual. The parts affected are the trunk and extremities, including the hands, there being no sign of the disorder above the collar line or below the ankles except in infants.

The most typical lesions (sore) are seen between the fingers and on the wrists. They appears as small pimples and blisters, on the surface of some of which are seen delicate, black, thread-like, straight or curved lines from an eighth of an inch to a quarter of an inch long. Each line is the path of a parasite in the skin and it is furrow filled with dirt, eggs and excrement of the organism. There are dozen or more eggs in each furrow and at one end of it is the parasite. The eggs give rise to new parasite which crawl out the surface of the skin. On the region other than the hands, wrists, genitals and buttocks, the lesions occur chiefly as scratch marks the size of a pinhead, which can hardly recognized as lesions of scabies.

Treatment of scabies consists in applying a sulphur salve for five successive nights. After taking a scrub bath, the affected individual should apply the salve from the neck to the ankles, including the hands. A suit of underwear with long sleeves and legs should be worn continuously, night and day, it becoming permeated with the sulphur, and thin cotton gloves should be worn at night. On the morning following the fifth application of the salve, a cleansing bath is taken and clean clothing put on. Some itching may persist, but it is due to irritation of the skin by the sulphur and should be allayed by a few daily applications of olive oil.

Scabies may be passed on from one child to another by direct contact. Hence, the teacher must recognize this disease and prevent contact between the infected child and others.