A case of peculiar multiple sebaceous cysts (steatocystoma multiplex) / by J.J. Pringle.

  • Pringle, J. J. (John James), 1855-1922.
Date:
[between 1890 and 1899?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A case of peculiar multiple sebaceous cysts (steatocystoma multiplex) / by J.J. Pringle. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/16 (page 5)
    (b.) This is another portion of skin from the patient, containing one or two solid glandular tumours. On microscopic examination they are found to consist of hypertrophied and distended sebaceous glands which have not become cystic. The microscopic appearances of the cystic growth are illustrated in the accompanying drawings by Mr. Colhoun. Remarks.—The only similar case which I have been able to trace is recorded by Boselliniin the forty-fifth volume of the Archiv. fur Der- matologie und Syphilis, 1898, p. 81, the patient having been under observation in the clinic of Professor Majocchi of Bologna. The case is so obviously identical in nature with my own, that only the points of difference between the two—and that in mere matters of detail—will here be indicated. First as to clinical characters :—Bosellini’s patient was a powerful labourer, aged 40 years, living in conditions of physiological poverty, who had noticed the gradual development of the growths for about eight years ; he had frequently eaten measly pork, and Bosellini’s fancy naturally also turned to thoughts of cysticercus. None of the cysts are reported to have suppurated, nor I1 is there any note of the presence of scars from antecedent lesions, but the tumour in the cruro-perinaeal fold caused the patient pain when walking. The contents of the cysts were odourless and “ of syrupy consistence, yellowish white in colour, like half-frozen olive 9 oil or fluid vaseline”; and this description corresponds with the characters of the fluid obtained by puncture of some of the medium¬ sized tumours in my case. Chemical analysis revealed the presence of fatty substances only—chiefly oleine and palmitrine—and the absence of albumen, butyric or valerianic, acid, etc. The numerous and admirable microscopical drawings, illustrating Bosellini’s paper, depict the various stages of the pathological process from its com¬ mencement to its end, and testify to a wealth of material for section¬ cutting which a private patient, such as mine, could scarcely be I expected to yield. For details, reference may be made to the original paper, in which Bosellini’s conclusions are thus epitomised :— (].) The prime cause of the formation of the cysts is a process of deratinisation, which causes an impediment to the outflow of the (sebaceous) glands. i