Giovannini describes a case of canities unguium in a patient of
twenty-nine, following an attack of typhoid fever. On examining
the hands of this patient the nails showed in their entire extent
a white, opaque, almost ivory color. An abnormal quantity of air
found in the interior of the nails explains in this particular
case their impaired appearance. It is certain that the nails, in
order to have admitted such a large quantity of air into their
interior must have altered in their intimate structure; and
Giovannini suggests that they were subject to an abnormal process
of keratinization. Unna describes a similar case, which, however,
he calls leukonychia.
Plica polonica, or, as it was known in Cracow--weicselzopf, is a
disease peculiar to Poland, or to those of Polish antecedents,
characterized by the agglutination, tangling, and anomalous
development of the hair, or by an alteration of the nails, which
become spongy and blackish. In older days the disease was well
known and occupied a prominent place in books on skin-diseases.
Hercules de Saxonia and Thomas Minadous, in 1610, speak of plica
as a disease already long known. The greater number of writers
fix the date of its appearance in Poland at about the year 1285,
under the reign of Lezekle-Noir.
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