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Report of a Case

MARTIN LLOYD NORTON, M.S.P.H., M.D.; ANGELO M. SALA, M.D.; MARTIN ELLIOT SILVERSTEIN, M.D.

AMA Arch Surg. 1957;75(3):473-478.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Ainhum is from a verb in the Yoruba language meaning "to saw" or "to file."⁴² The term was first applied to an unusual chronic disease affecting the pedal digits,¹⁴ and sometimes the fingers,11 by the African Negroes.

The condition was reported by Clarke in 1860.¹⁶ He described it as "dry gangrene." It was not until da Silva Lima became aware of the disease in Brazil and reported on it in the Medical Gazette of Bahia¹⁷ that the definitive entity was described and the name ainhum formally accepted. A pathologic study by Wucherer in 1872⁵⁴ marked the next phase in the elaboration of the entity. Facio, in 1924, contributed a roentgenologic demonstration to the description of the disease.²²

Dactylosis spontanea occurs principally among the colored races, particularly Negroes, and mainly in men between the ages of 25 and 45.¹⁴ Cases have been reported in . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
New York

From Department of Surgery and Pathology, New York Medical College-Metropolitan Hospital Medical Center.; Associate Professor of Pathology, Flower and Fifth Avenue Hospitals; Associate Attending Pathologist, Metropolitan Hospital (Dr. Sala). Assistant Professor of Surgery, New York Medical College; Assistant Attending Surgeon, Flower and Fifth Avenue Hospitals, Metropolitan Hospital, and Bird S. Coler Memorial Hospital (Dr. Silverstein).

Footnotes
Submitted for publication Feb. 4, 1957.

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