Necropsy Findings in a Case of Congenital Scleroderma and Sclerodactylia

Today there are two diseases which the dermatologist thinks of as producing a hardening of the skin in very young infants or in the new-born; these, edema neonatorum and sclerema neonatorum, are so uniformly and routinely described in all the text-books that they at once come to the mind of every dermatologist when any abnormal cutaneous firmness appears at birth or in early infancy. This is true in spite of their rarity, particularly in the case of sclerema neonatorum, which the case herewith presented most closely resembles, and which is so uncommon that the occurrence even of clinical cases is still held to afford sufficient ground for report in the literature. In reviewing the literature of the last five years, I have found only fourteen such case reports. The unusual title given it and the usefulness of this case depend almost entirely on the fact that a necropsy was performed,