Multiple Myeloma

One hundred years ago, in November 1845, Sir James Watson sent a test tube of urine obtained from a 45 year old tradesman to Dr. Henry Bence-Jones with an accompanying note inquiring as to the nature of a strange substance present in that urine. This substance, then called "animal matter," has since become known as Bence-Jones protein.¹MacIntyre²reported this case in 1850 in theMedico-Chirurgical Transactions. Dalrymple³examined and described pathologically two ribs of an affected patient and reported the condition as mollifies ossium in 1846. However, von Rustizky⁴is said to have been the first to describe the condition under the title "multiples myelom" in 1873, and Kahler⁵is credited with having associated this disease with the occurrence of Bence-Jones protein in the urine. Since these early reports additions have been made to the literature steadily and at a somewhat increasing rate as