Word: vitiligo
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
What Griffin did was really quite simple. He persuaded a dermatologist in New Orleans to treat him with a medicine used to cure vitiligo: a skin disease which causes white blotches to appear on a Negro's face and body. Where the medicine worked imperfectly, Griffin applied black stain; then he shaved his hair, and within a few days was transformed into a Negro...
...Vitiligo, or "piebald skin," is a disease that can be badly disfiguring in Negroes. It is characterized by smooth, light-colored patches of skin from which the natural pigment has disappeared. When it attacks the face, vitiligo sometimes produces a mottled, owlish visage. Victims usually cover the splotches with makeup or, in desperation, resort to tattooing-which rarely helps. Georgetown University's Dr. Robert Stolar last week announced that he got dramatic results from treating vitiliginous Negroes with a drug called monobenzyl ether of hydroquinone (MBEHQ). The drug's effect; it turns Negro skin white...
Spread daily on the body in the form of an ointment, MBEHQ interferes with formation of the natural skin pigment. It works only on Negroes who already exhibit telltale light splotches of vitiligo therefore have a demonstrated tendency toward depigmentation. Dr. Stolar reported that he had successfully treated more than 300 vitiliginous patients, many of whom chose to use the ointment only on small areas of their skin. But 16 patients who decided to try MBEHO more extensively, Dr. Stolar said, have achieved almost total body depigmentation, which presumably will last as long as they continue using the drug...
...Griffin took Oxsoralen, a drug sometimes administered to victims of vitiligo, a disease that produces milk-white patches on the skin. The drug makes the skin extraordinarily sensitive to ultraviolet rays; under sunlamp or sunlight exposure, the skin turns a deep brown. * From Hughes's poem "Dream Variations...