Cryotherapy for rosacea.

History of Cryotherapy Treatment by cold (cryotherapy) has been practised in medicine for many centuries. The use of liquid air to produce intense cold locally by White in I899 introduced a new and valuable method of treatment into dermatology. His technique was soon adopted successfully by other American practitioners such as Trimble (I905), Whitehouse (I907), and Dade (I908); liquid air was used also in Australia by Beckett (1905). In I900 Dethlefsen reported his method of local freezing of skin lesions with ethyl chloride. Saalfeld (I9OI) found liquid air too expensive. He considered using liquid carbon dioxide but decided on methyl chloride 15 per cent. in ethyl chloride. Liquid carbon dioxide was used by Arning (I903). Juliusberg (I905) tried ethyl chloride and then developed a technique of spraying with liquid carbon dioxide. He excised pieces of skin which had been sprayed and studied them histologically. The next great advance came from Pusey (I907 a and b) who introduced solid carbon dioxide ('snow') as the freezing agent. From this time onwards liquid air was gradually given up and snow became the standard substance for local cryotherapy. Pusey's work was soon copied and extended by Hubbard (igo8), Jackson and Hubbard (I909), Sutton (I909), Zeisler (I909), and many others in America, by Lawrence (I909) in Australia, and by Morton (i9io a and b) and Stopford-Taylor and MacKenna (1912) in England. Between I9IO and I9I3 Pusey's method spread to most civilized countries and a number of French theses for doctorates appeared on the subject. In i9ii Cranston Low published an excellent monograph on the subject with 94 references and another smaller monograph by Hall-Edwards appeared in 1913. About this time a large number of ' cryocauteries' were devised and described. From then onwards the majority of articles on cryotherapy came from France. Sibley (1912) dissolved the snow in ether. Beclere (19I3) used acetone as a solvent; the resulting ' carbon-dioxide-acetone-slush ' is an extremely valuable agent. Its use was popularized and studied by Giraudeau (1928), Thibaut (I928) and Lortat-Jacob and Solente (I93i). Good reviews have been written by Lortat-Jacob and Solente (1930) and by Solente (1936); the former has a very long but rather inaccurate bibliography.