Furuncle

A furuncle, or common boil, needs little in the way of description, the features being so familiar to all. Pathologically considered, it may be described as an acute and painful localized inflammation, differing, however, from a simple abscess by the fact that in the furuncle we find a central core of necrosed cutaneous and connective tissue, around which the inflammation is developed. Modern investigation leads us to the supposition that a micro-organism, having gained an entrance into one of the follicular openings, sets up changes which result in the death of the tissue in the immediate vicinity. This necrosed tissue acts as a foreign body and excites inflammation, as would a thorn, and after a few days the hard, painful red tubercle exhibits a drop of pus at its summit, which gradually increases until the entire lesion softens, and finally breaks, with exit of pus, together with the core referred to.

The pus which is discharged from a furuncle appears to be capable of exciting new lesions of a similar nature, and crops of boils may follow each other in an extremely persistent and disagreeable manner.