The advent of a novel diagnosis: melanoma through the ages.

ABSTRACT

In the 1930s, the risk of contracting melanoma was only 11500; however, by 1996 this number had risen to 187 and has been increasing ever since. To better understand the nature of melanoma, books, journals, and scholarly literary works were searched and contributors of this disease were studied in greater detail. Antiquity of melanoma is said to be approximately 2400 years old based on observations made on 9 Peruvian Inca mummies in the 1960s that showed apparent signs of melanoma. René Théophile Hyacinthe Laënnec, the inventor of the stethoscope, first described melanoma as a disease entity. William Norris, an English general practitioner, gave the first English language report of this disease. There are many other physicians from France, England, and the United States who had an active role in the discovery of melanoma.