INFANTILE ECZEMA
Children’s dermatitis or infantile eczema is a distressing condition, since it is not only a strain on the child, but also on the parents, due to the constant extra care and attention the child has to receive.
In 1964, at the Convention of the German Society for Child Therapy held in Munich, Dr Holt, an American paediatrician at New York University, presented the viewpoint that the ‘tar therapy’ was still the best method for the treatment of infantile eczema and that using tar extract of 5 per cent was also more economical than treating with steroid ointments. Also of considerable interest was Dr Holt’s concession that infantile eczema is much easier to suppress than it is to cure.
With the help of the ‘tar therapy’ it is relatively easy to reduce the severity of the condition from degree IV to degree I, but Dr Holt admitted that this therapy is not enough to effect a complete cure. What was not mentioned was the fact that once the tar therapy is discontinued the little patient will quickly experience a worsening of the condition. Neither was there any mention that tar, with its eleven hydrocarbons, including napthalene, has been recognised as a carcinogenic – cancer-producing – substance.
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