Sarcoidosis, or Besnier-Boeck-Schaumann Disease

Only within comparatively recent years has the important observation made by Schaumann¹in 1914 been fully appreciated. He showed then that the lesions of the nose, the ears and the fingers described in 1889 by Besnier²as lupus pernio and the disease affecting the skin, the mucous membranes and the lymph nodes which Boeck³in 1899 termed sarcoid are the same. He pointed out further that the tonsils, the lungs, the bones and the internal organs are involved in the process and concluded, therefore, that the disease is or may become a generalized one. He found the pathologic lesion to be the same in all organs, and since it involved lymphoid tissue he termed the disease lymphogranuloma benignum to distinguish it from Hodgkin's disease, or lymphogranuloma malignum. Since Schaumann's time the disease has been redescribed under a number of names. Kuznitsky and Bittorf⁴in 1915 directed