The disease is entirely local. It does not affect the lymphatic glands, nor do similar tumors appear on other parts of the body. The disease usually attacks some part near the eyelids; it is of slow progress; there is little pain. The disease has been described as commencing as a “pimple,” “a blind boil,” “a small hard pale tubercle,” etc.; which tends to scab after a small central crack makes its appearance. There is, in fact, a small pimple followed by a minute ulcer. The disease extends gradually in all direction, but very slowly. When an ulcer forms, the edge is indurated and raised, but not undermined and everted; and there is no infiltration of the surrounding healthy structures. The surface of the ulcer is dry, clean, glossy and does not give exit to any foul secretion; it is irregular in form, more or less oval, however.
The disease differs clinically from the ordinary progress of cancer by its greater slowness, the little pain and hemorrhage, the absence both of any attempt at the formation of a fungoid growth, and of fetor. The glands, moreover, are never affected. The advances of the deposit and ulceration are unequal, hence the eaten-out or rodent appearance. The ulceration advances in extent, and in depth. The growth is always in one mass, not in distinct centers.
Rodent ulcer then occurs on the face, has an indurated edge, a tendency to spread without respect to kind of tissue, is of slow progress, painless, is not related to any cachexia, never causes enlargement of glands, and microscopically presents characters that betoken it as the least expressed form of the cancerous cachexia. It is most common between fifty and sixty, and it does not occur before thirty; generally it has its seat about the eyelids, and occurs in either sex equally, and it never attacks the lower lip.
The treatment is simple and satisfactory. Experience teaches that extirpation by the knife is the most successful mode of treatment.
One case is reported where the application of lactic acid resulted in the speedy cure of a rodent ulcer.
The following homoeopathic remedies may be compared: Arsenicum, Belladonna, Cicuta, Hepar, Hydrocotyle, Hydrastis, Mercurius, Nitric acid, Silicea, Staphisagria, Sulphur, Uranium.
