On the antiquity of melanoma

The first accredited mention of melanoma was by Hippocrates in the fifth century, B.C. The legendary rumor that this tumor was described in the Ebers Papyrus is apocryphal. A number of references to “fatal black tumors with metastases and black fluid in the body” are encountered in European literature between 1650 and 1760. Laënnec discussed “la mélanose” in 1806 and Robert Carswell, in 1838, first employed the word melanoma. During the eighteenth century moles—either natural or as appliques (“mouches pour Bal”)—were popular as beauty marks. Later, in addition to being considered beautiful, they had religious implications. In the early 1930's moles on the upper part of the trunk—consonant with an ancient ritualistic qualification—played a significant role in the incarnation of the fourteenth Dalai Lama. Most interesting testimony to the antiquity of this tumor is exhibited in several mummies of pre‐Colombian Incas of Peru, some estimated to be 2,400 years old, which show diffuse metastases to bones, particularly of the skull and extremities.