While the physiology of pigmentation is but little understood, pathologic pigmentation is involved in even greater obscurity. In 1889 von Recklinghausen described a condition of pigmentation affecting various organs, the more important features of which are: 1. The presence in the cells of various glands, especially the liver and the pancreas, of an iron-containing pigment. 2. The presence of an iron-free pigment in the smooth muscle cells of the gastro-intestinal tract and of the blood- and lymph-vessels and in certain connective-tissue cells. 3. The association of cirrhosis of the liver with the pigmentation.
Before v. Recklinghausen's publication, other writers, especially French, had studied examples of wide-spread pigmentation, notably in connection with diabetes mellitus. There was established a new form of cirrhosis of the liver, pigmentary cirrhosis, and a new clinical condition, bronzed diabetes—"diabète bronzé." The cases of bronzed diabetes—according to Anschütz1 there are now twenty-four recorded—present the picture of