Skin Testing

It is not necessary to do skin tests on all children with eczema, and some dermatologists think that scratch or intracutaneous tests are of no value for any child with eczema. I do not quite agree with this, and believe that often valuable information may be obtained by scratch and intracutane­ous tests, and also by patch tests, when used in the appropriate pa­tients. However, if it seems clear from the history and from inspection that the eczema is not of allergic ori­gin, skin testing is not indicated.

Skin testing will be discussed more fully in the section dealing with atopic and contact eczema.