The upper respiratory tract

Abstract

Cesar Boeck of Christiania, Denmark, was the first to use the word sarcoid and described the multisystem nature of the disease in 1899 (Black 1973). He mentioned the clinical similarity to a previous case described by Jonathan Hutch- inson of London in 1898 as Mortimer’s Malady where a female patient, Mrs Mortimer, had generalized skin lesions and swelling of the bridge of the nose. In 1905 Boek recorded infiltration of the nasal mucosa in a case of multiple benign sarcoid (Boeck 1905). Kreibich and Kraus described a patient in 1908 with sarcoid of the skin of the nose and forehead who also had nasal symptoms (Kreibich and Kraus 1908). The involvement of the tonsils was documented by Shaumann in 1914 who reported that, in two out of three cases of lupus pernio, the tonsils showed specific histological features (Shaumann 1936). In 1918 Ulrich reported the involvement of the larynx (Ulrich 1918). Subsequently many reports of upper respiratory tract involvement were published but it was not until recently that epidemiological studies attempted to define the incidence of various organ involvement.