A brief history of scrotal cancer.

Scrotal cancer has a particular interest for students of the history of occupational medicine as it was the first malignant disease to be connected with a specific occupation when in 1775 Percivall Pott described its occurrence in chimney sweeps.1 Although it does arise spontaneously, most cases of scrotal cancer are associated with some occupational hazard. Since the eighteenth century there have been at least three major occupational groups in which the prevalence of the disease has been unusu ally great, chimney sweeps, those who work with the distillates of coal, and men exposed to mineral oil.