PERIPHLEBITIS NODULARIS NECROTISANS: AN ATTEMPT AT DEFINITION AND CLASSIFICATION

One of the great faults of dermatologic nomenclature is the haste with which a new name is coined to designate anomalous symptoms of a previously well established clinical entity. To make matters even worse, the needless confusion which thereby ensues in the literature is kept up for years by the continued use of a name which in all common sense should have been relegated to limbo shortly after its conception. This holds particularly true of the term periphlebitis nodularis necrotisans, which was first introduced by Philippson1 in 1901. While the term has rarely appeared in the literature, it has done so frequently enough to warrant an analysis of the evidence pro and con to determine whether it is a clinical entity. I believe that I can offer sufficient evidence to prove conclusively that it has no claim as an original dermatosis, and that it is either an aberrant form