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