A new papular erythema of childhood.

Abstract

The delineation of a new disease is a hazardous undertaking, aberrant types of already known conditions having often been mistaken for new entities. This is particularly true for disease of the skin, since the skin's repertory of clinical reactions to an injurious stimulus is both limited and erratic and histologic pictures are often nonspecific. An example of the resulting confusion is the disorderly status of conditions such as recalcitrant vesicopustular eruption of the hands, described under so many different titles by various authors¹that a schematic diagram is needed to keep track of the various subtypes, which generally cannot be clearly differentiated from each other. Recognizing these pitfalls, we feel that where a previously undescribed characteristic symptom pattern has been repetitively seen and does not merge into any other known cutaneous disorder, it probably deserves recognition as a new and separate disease. The dermatosis which we believe to be