[The blue tests. Current data concerning its indications and interpretation (author's transl)].

The blue test is designed to reveal oedema of total or partial lymphatic origin. It consists of the subcutaneous or intradermal injection in oedematous areas of a very small amount of violet patent blue and study of its resorption. The diagnosis is immediate and although reliability is not absolute it is nevertheless highly constant.

[Nosology of so-called capillaritis ulcers].

It was with ochre dermatitis that the clinical notion of "capillaritis" was first put forward, but in what sense is it still possible today to speak of "capillaritic ulcer"? Although some special characteristics have been ascribed to it, this ulcer is derived from a microvascular and tissue reaction to venous stasis, whether the latter is primary due to varicose veins or secondary due to "post-thrombotic syndrome" or obliterative arteriopathy of the supplying trunks and especially the nutritional branches of the dermohypodermic network. This type of ulcer involves the Circulatory Unit and is expressed by an imbalance in irrigation, the result of a whole sequence of capillary closures and anastomotic openings, of which the "mosaic" appearance on infra-red thermography is evidence. It is a stasis ulcer in which the mode of distribution of the capillaries is involved just as much as the thickness of the skin of the groove of Bisgaard, but it is the result of the majority of the angiopathic states of the lower limb.