XCIX. HISTOPATHOLOGY OF THE SKIN IN PELLAGRA

Abstract

ST. LOUIS During the past decade numerous clinical and experimental studies on pellagra have resulted in a distinct clarification of the concepts of the etiology of the disease. However, histologic studies of cutaneous lesions in human beings have not kept pace with the other advances. This may be due to the fact that the earlier studies in this field gave accurate descriptions of the acute lesions of the skin, which were accepted by most investigators. Since it has become more and more evident, however, that pellagra is a systemic disease, it would seem that additional information concerning the cutaneous manifestations might be obtained from a histologic study not only of the active lesions but also of clinically unaffected areas of skin in the same patients. The present investigation was undertaken to determine whether or not the clinically unaffected skin of patients presenting pellagrous lesions shows any deviations from the normal.