In an article entitled "Is Dandruff Seborrheal?" Rulison and Highman1 pointed out the chaos which exists in our usual dermatologic textbook classification and consideration of seborrhea of the scalp and of dandruff. The pioneer work in this field was done by Sabouraud who gave a clear description of these various processes as they affect the scalp.2 He pointed out the mistake of dividing seborrhea into an oily and dry form, showing that the so-called "dry seborrhea" is not a seborrhea at all3 but a pityriasis caused by an organism not related to seborrhea. Moreover, he showed that dandruff is not seborrheal but rather pityriasic, either simple or complicated by a secondary infection.
Based on Sabouraud's work, Rulison and Highman classify and describe the various processes as follows:
Steatorrhea: An oily condition of the skin produced by a simple hypersecretion of the sebaceous glands. It is not