Description of primary and secondary lesions is the ground for modern dermatology and the classification of skin diseases. From 1798 to 1808, different parts of a book called “On cutaneous diseases” was published by the British dermatologist Dr Robert Willan (1757-1812) He also described erythema infectiosum occuring in childhood. The disease is also known as…
Squamous cell carcinoma in situ was described in 1912 as a precancerous dermatosis by Dr John Templeton Bowen (1857-1940) He was an American Dermatologist graduated from Harvard and was a Professor of Dermatology. He trained abroad in Germany and Austria. Descriptions from him also include Bowenoid papulosis On a personal basis, he was shy and…
In the early 20th century (1919) two American dermatologists* sought to determine the origin of warts and molluscum contagiosum: To do this they curetted tissue from the 2 lesions and added saline. after “mincing them”, they passed it through a filter to remove all bacteria (Berkefeld filter) They then auto-inoculated themselves and volunteers with the…
The word comes from latin: Porrigere = to extend If one looks in old dermatology textbooks which includes Alibert’s (1768-1837) famous atlas; on will surely stumble upon this term. By trying to find the skin condition corresponding to this term, one quickly realizes that there is a great confusion surrounding this word. Willan and Bateman…
The Greek words of origin are: παχυς= pachus = thick δερμα = derma = skin “Pachyderm” refers to a family of mammals with thickened skin and includes the elephant, hippopotamus and rhinoceros. “Pachys” is frequently used in medical terminology: a lot of human organs can thicken: skull, meninges, spine, lungs, heart, peritoneum… In dermatology the…
Atrophic Malignant Papulosis was described in 1942 by the Parisian dermatologist Dr. Robert Degos (1904-1987) en 1942 in a 49 year old plumber. Biopsies were examined by Dr Achille Civatte and showed marked epidermal atrophy with absence of infiltrate in the dermis, with vascular changes leading to thrombosis. Although extremely rare, Degos was thereafter able…
The greek word from which this term comes from is : λειχην = leichen = lichen (dartrous) This denomination was given following botanics, to describe dermatoses defined by a gathering of papules or elevated lesions (plaques) which resemble lichen (or dartrous-like) On the famous tree of dermatoses by Alibert in 1828, dartrous (lichen-like) dermatosis figure…
Blaschko lines are a distribution of skin lines which can be found in certain dermatosis, often genetic. Examples include incontinentia pigmenti, epidermal nevus, lichen striatus… These lines carry the name of Dr Alfred Blaschko (1858-1922), a German dermatologist who described the lines on a statue and published the pictoral diagram in 1901. The cause of…
What is it ? It is the presence of pinpoint bleeding when the scales are removed from the surface of psoriasis lesions. In French, it is called “signe de la rosée sanglante” which translates to: dew which looks like blood There are full of histopathological details, but this is nothing surprizing from a master in…
Moriz Kaposi (1837-1902) was a Hungarian dermatologist practicing in Vienna, at the time the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He described Idiopathic Multiple Pigment Sarcoma of the skin in 1878 – now widely called Kaposi’s sarcoma. Since then it is not fully idiopathic anymore and is due to reactivation of the Human Herpesvirus type 8:…
