CLASS I.—HYPEREMIAS

In the class of hyperemias (hyperæmiæ), or congestions, should be
included only those cutaneous conditions characterized by an abnormal
flux of blood, unattended by ordinary inflammatory changes. This
class is directly opposed to that known as anemias, sometimes included
in dermatologic treatises, in which there is an abnormal diminution of
blood in the part, resulting in pallor of the skin. This latter is merely
a passing condition without significance or a more or less permanent
state symptomatic of systemic blood impoverishment; it belongs, there­
fore, more properly to general medicine, and need not be considered here.
Although hyperemias are to be considered as simple congestion, it is
not unusual to find often a slight, although scarcely perceptible, tendency
to inflammatory action. On the other hand, instead of being an active
phenomenon, it may be purely a passive congestion, really a stasis, and
which may be of a dark, livid color,—livedo,—and due to local causes
or to general circulatory weakness, sometimes resulting in a more or less
general passive, livid congestion of the surface—cyanosis. The active
hyperemias are represented by the non­inflammatory or non-exudative
erythemata.

ERYTHEMA

When used alone, this term is a somewhat indefinite one, and indi­
cates a hyperemia or redness of the skin that may be congestive or exuda­
tive. Ordinarily, however, it refers merely to the simple hyperemias
coming under the head of erythema hyperæmicum seu simplex, those
erythemata that are exudative coming under the head of inflammations.
The dividing-line between the erythemata without exudation and the
erythemata with exudation and the mildest grades of dermatitis cannot
always be clearly drawn.

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