Psychosomatic Medicine 13:10-17 (1951)
© 1951 American Psychosomatic Society

Relationship Between Certain Emotional States and Exudation into the Skin

¹ Institute for Psychosomatic and Psychiatric Research and Training of the Michael Reese Hospital, Chicago, Illinois

A technic for quantitative measurement of fluctuations in the rate of exudation into the site of a cantharides blister of the skin is described. A blister is raised with cantharides, its top is cut off leaving a freely oozing skin surface from which the upper layers of epidermis have been removed. With filter paper weighed before and after blotting, and standard time units, the quantities of fluid accumulating on this surface in a definite period are measured.

In patients with skin disease (atopic dermatitis and others) and in subjects with nonpathologic skins, there is a sharp rise in this fluid level associated with weeping.

In emotionally tense subjects, relaxing suggestions, or distracting conversation result in a drop in exudation rate.

After abreaction, though the subject may weep, rises in exudation rate at the blister site will be much diminished or absent.

Antihistamine drugs markedly reduce the moistness of the. blister site, and the fluctuations in exudation rate produced by weeping.

Inhibition of weeping, either as a result of suggestion, or as a result of an inner resistance on the part of the patient, results first in a drop in exudation rate, followed by a rise as the inhibition is continued, indicating a tendency to break through the inhibition at the blister site.

The possible relation of these findings to clinical edema of the skin is discussed.