26th October 2010, 10:18 AM
Kevin and Gwyl your posts reminds me of a colleague who was working on a site in Chester years ago. She was working in and around tanning vats, and contracted welts and a nasty rash along on the inside of her arms, spreading towards the lymph nodes under her arms. She went to her GP who prescribed Cortisone cream. At the time we were associated with the University of Liverpool, she had access to the Tropical Med department. The doc there said the last thing she should put on it was Cortisone, which would have aggravated the condition. The docs ran a battery of tests on her for Wiel's, plague and several other zoonotic infections. The results came up blank and the Docs were genuinely perplexed. In the mean time the site was shut down until all people on site were issued with protective clothing and masks....with these precautions in place, excavations resumed (and after the results were available). She still has no idea what it was.