Journal : Transactions of the Clinical Society of London, vol. 22.
London : Longmans, Green, and Co., 1889.
Description : pp. 189-192, [1 l.] pl. ; ill.: 1 photo. ; 22 cm.
Photograph : half-tone; clinical portrait.
Photographer : Danielsson.
Subject : Skin — Molluscum fibrosum; neurofibromatosis.
Notes :
Recklinghausen's view of the connection of these two classes of growths is that the fibrous tumours of the skin, or molluscum bodies, are formed on cutaneous nerves, as the other tumours are on deeper nerves. In fact, both are to be described as neuroma. It is true he recognises the fact, which I have established in both my cases, that some of the molluscum tumours contain no nerve-fibres but appear to have been formed around other structures of the skin, such as glands and hair-follicles. This he accounts for by supposing that the first class were originally formed round nerves which have been compressed and destroyed by the fibrous growth and are hence no longer seen. This explanation is evidently one rather speculative than demonstrative. I have ventured to suggest another, based on the view that fibrous tumours arise independently in the corium and in the nerve- sheaths, for an exposition of which I must again refer to my paper in the Pathological Transactions. — Page 192.
Payne was terribly wrong on Recklinghausen. However, he was an outstanding historian and bibliographer, his scholarship for the FitzPatrick Lecture honorarium of 1903 titled, English medicine in the Anglo-Saxon times (Oxford, 1904) just one of incalculable contributions to the history of medicine (vide: GM 6536, 5120).
