This article is only available in the PDF format. Download the PDF to view the article, as well as its associated figures and tables.
IN FRENCH dermatologic literature, lupus vulgaris is still sometimes referred to as lupus de Willan and lupus erythematosus as lupus de Cazenave. Although Biett had described one clinical form of the latter dermatosis in 1828 as erytheme centrifuge and Hebra another form in 1845 as seborrhea congestiva, it was Cazenave who, just about one hundred years ago, gave the first full account of several varieties of the chronic form and who gave the entity its present name.
The original description of the disease appeared as a clinical lesson given to medical students at the Hôpital St. Louis in Paris. It was contained in the August, 1851, number of the Annales des maladies de la peau et de la syphilis, the first dermatologic journal in French, which Cazenave himself had founded several years earlier. It is indeed interesting to note how accurate some of his observations in this first description were.