Dr. Cannnady’s eczema diagnosis and treatment – Sedalia Democrat

Dr. Julian E. Canaday of Sedalia was a man of many interests. He produced a set of correspondence courses on horticulture, owned State Fair Floral Company on South Ohio Avenue, maintained several greenhouses at the corner of 16th Street and Limit Avenue, and owned the State Fair Floral Service Station, whose lot was lavishly planted with flowers. He was also a doctor specializing in the treatment of eczema.

The greenhouses and service station are gone, but State Fair Floral Company on South Ohio Avenue and the chimney that served the greenhouses, now at the State Fair Shopping Center, remain. The secret of his treatment for eczema is lost, but a book he wrote called Whys and Wherefores of Eczema is in the collection of the Pettis County Museum. The book provides an interesting look at what doctors knew and didnt know about skin diseases in the early twentieth century.

Cannaday begins with a definition of eczema and the causes of the disease. He describes it as a catarrhal inflammation of the skin. Catarrh was a term used in the 19th and early 20th centuries to refer to a buildup of mucus in the nose, throat and sinus cavities. The word eczema came from Greek words meaning to boil out of the blood. Thus, according to Cannaday, eczema was a blood disease with a skin eruption. He did not explain the relation of the blood disease and skin eruption to the buildup of nasal mucus.

Eczema was not caused, Cannaday believed, by a germ, but by an accumulation of acid in the blood. Acid in the blood was caused by improper living, such as poor diet, drinking of water, baths, use of soaps, etc., etc. The blood was poisoned by these things, and acid developed in the blood. The kidneys, assisted by the skin, normally filtered out the impurities in the blood. If the skin was injured or chaffed, the skin became irritated by the acid it filtered out, which oozed out as a straw-colored, watery discharge which dried, leaving a dirty, yellowing, greasy scab.

As the acid continued to filter out onto the skin, the disease progressed, causing itching, burning, and pain. The pain was Natures way of letting the patient know that something was wrong.

Eczema erupted in some people during certain seasons of the year because they ate too much of the foods that produced acid during the digestive process. People who worked strenuously and sweat a great deal suffered because the perspiration irritated the inflamed skin. Women frequently developed eczema on their hands because they had to place their hands in soap suds, extremely hot or cold water, dish water, and other liquids that interfered with the normal action of the skin.

Eczema did not cause death, Cannaday insisted, but the cause of eczema, the buildup of acid in the blood, could damage the kidneys and cause Brights disease, rheumatism, and other deadly diseases.

Cannaday identified a number of different kinds of eczema distinguished by the part of the body infected, the nature of the skin lesions, and the age of the patient. He attempted to explain the difference between psoriasis, lupus vulgaris, impetigo, severely chapped hands, and heat rash through the use of photographs of infected people.

He also promoted a cure. Next weeks column details of Cannadays diagnoses, the nature of his treatment, and some contemporary medical information about eczema.

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Rhonda Chalfant is the president of the Pettis County chapter of NAACP and the Pettis County Historical Society.