The term "pseudoxanthoma elasticum" is a misnomer. It is used to designate a rare disease of the skin, characterized clinically by the appearance of linear or punctate, faint egg-yellow or light orange discolorations, associated with a loss of elasticity, of the skin of the neck, axillary spaces, cubital fossae, popliteal spaces and inguinal areas and sometimes of the chest, abdomen and buccal mucosae (?). The disease under this name has been known to dermatologists since 1896, when Darier1 coined the term to describe a condition of the skin found in a case that had previously been studied by Chauffard and others. His pathologic studies in this case led him to employ the term "elastorrhexis of the skin," a phrase which in the light of subsequent studies we believe to be far more descriptive of the disease.
At the time this paper is written about thirty-five cases of pseudoxanthoma