CURING BIRTHMARKS

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 110, 3 February 1931, Page 3

CURING BIRTHMARKS

Frozen With Special Snow

NEW MEDICAL METHOD

The birthmark (or .'naevus) forms an unsightly blemish on many an otherwise clear and healthy skin.

It is due to an excessive growth of the tiny blood-vessels on the surface of the skin or at a deeper level. A birthmark is an uncertain quantity. Sometimes as the child grows older it may disappear altogether, but more often it gradually increases in size or remains as at birth. Occasionally it is a great disfigurement, as in the so-called “port-wine stain,” which frequently extends over the whole of one side of the face.

Of the several methods of dealing with birthmarks, freezing is, on the whole, the most satisfactory. It is done with special “snow” obtained from a carbondioxide'gas cylinder. The snow, which gives a temperature■ ns low as minus 80 degrees Centigrade, is moulded into .solid sticks and applied direct to the birthmark with the object of destroying it. Surprisingly little pain is .felt, and after a time nil that is left of the naevus is a practically , invisible sear. Cauterisation witli acids and other agents forms an additional line of attack. Amateur attempts with such methods should, however, be avoided.