Proliferative disease of the reticuloendothelial system has recently aroused much interest among both clinicians and pathologists, but it has received little attention by dermatologists, although in many of the reported cases there have been cutaneous manifestations.
There are many different views concerning the origin and function of the cells that go to make up this type of proliferation. Dameshek,1 Epstein,2 Lynch,3 Downey,4 Aschoff and Kiyono,5 Reschad and Schilling-Torgau,6 and Cunningham, Doan and Sabin7 have associated reticuloendotheliosis with monocytic leukemia. Other authors, such as Maximow8 and Bloom,9 have expressed the belief that these cells are derived from lymphocytes, and still others have suggested their myeloblastic origin.
It is not our intention to discuss the origin of these cells, in view of the controversy that still exists. However, in the case here reported we have found features resembling both reticuloendotheliosis and Hand Schüller-Christian disease,