Apologies if this has already been asked; I did search and didn’t come up with anything. I also looked around the internet and didn’t find the answer anywhere.
London Hospital season 1, which I believe was called Casualty 1907 when originally aired on the BBC, there is a patient who is a little boy named Oliver.
Oliver is covered head to foot in a grotesque, oozing rash. Most of his hair has fallen out and nearly every movement breaks the skin open anew. He states that its extremely painful, like burning all over. After a couple of episodes, the doctors say there’s nothing they can do for him and discharge him.
What the heck did Oliver have? I know psoriasis can cover large portions of the body but from pictures it didn’t look like what this kid had – psoriasis gets red but its crusty and flaky; Oliver pretty much looked like he was severely burned in a fire.
Obviously he had an usually extreme case of something. Somehow I missed the diagnosis (or didn’t understand them when they said what it was, which also happens).
Anyone?
Some extreme skin infections like impetigo could reach such levels in the pre-antibiotic era. Just to show you it wasn’t only the poor, J.P. Morgan had a more or less permanent skin infection of his nose for much of his adult life - unsightly,disfiguring and unpleasant, yet one of the wealthiest men on earth had to just live with it. it would be cured in a few weeks today (antibiotic-resisting bugs aside).
Herlitz disease?
Genetic, the article says it’s always fatal, but that most don’t survive infancy, so if the patient was a little boy, maybe that’s not it.
Wouldn’t this happen for just about all their patients that didn’t just need a bone splinted?
Seems as though it would be just as formulaic as House, except that in 1907, they’d end up trying nothing, and if that didn’t kill the patient, they’d send him home.
It seems to fit the look of him and the description. Basically his skin doesn’t stretch, it cracks. Given that such children are prone to infection and also hyperthermia, the little boy probably doesn’t stand a chance at living to adulthood, sadly. 
Could it have been congenital syphilis?
One possibility is Stevens-Johnson syndrome/toxic epidermal necrolysis (warning, photos are somewhat graphic).
*I saw a case of this on a pediatric rotation back in med school, still a vivid memory.
Hi,…I just saw the episode you mention. I don’t think you missed anything. i was baffeled as well. I looked again at the scene where his treating physician is trying to convince the head doc to allow oliver to stay, he replys “what happens when another blaine comes in, we can’t house all the other blaines”…I thought I had gotten olivers name wrong. Then after checking i realized it may be a catch all for rash…I looked up blaine and received alot of articles on a rash called “caliblaines”…but is is a vascular rash and did not appear to be what was represented in the show??? However it is common in england. So I too wasnwondering what it was and why it wasn’t explained better, which is how i found you question…it came up when asking questions on ggogle about london hosp and oliver…sorry I am really no help, except to say you have company and did not miss the diagnosis earlier. If you do find out…post it. I had to register with straight dope to respond to you post…good luck…I’ll keep looking as well.
Just a bit of information I thought I would share, Blaine is not in reference to the boy’s disease, it is the characters last name. He is Oliver Blaine, so when they mention that they are referring to him by his surname. I have recently started watching this show and I love it, but I too am perplexed as to what it is that Oliver suffers from.
I know I’m late to this conversation, but I thought I’d comment… I just watched Season 1 Episode 3… and the nurse says that Oliver has ichthyosis simplex. She says this at about the 9:45 point in that episode…
I was curious about his condition, so did an internet search, and found that some people were wondering what he had… thought I’d try to help. 
ichttp://www.rightdiagnosis.com/medical/ichthyosis_simplex.htm