Mammillitis Maligna

Under this designation we embrace the peculiar and rare disease of the nipple and areola, commonly known as "Paget's disease of the nipple".

Dr. James Paget was the first to describe this disease, and he states that he had seen some fifteen cases, all occurring in women between the ages of forty and sixty. The affection commences as a red, almost raw inflammatory condition, confined to the mammilla and surrounding areola; the surface being somewhat granular, and looking not unlike an ordinary eczema rubrum from which the epithelium had exfoliated, and accompanied with a very similar exudation, with some tingling, burning, and itching. In other words, it presented the ordinary appearances of a common eczema, except that, when taken between the fingers, there was a firmness of the tissues, approaching the condition of induration, that is never met with in eczema proper.




The chief peculiarities of this disease, however, are the facts that, first, it is exceedingly rebellious to treatment, obstinately refusing to heal under the simple measures that would suffice in ordinary eczema; and, second, that the disease in question proves to be a forerunner of carcinoma.
It is on this fact that the real importance of the disease depends, as in the beginning it gives rise to very little local or other inconvenience.