H05 Jean-Nicolas Marjolin (1780–1850): a name to remember

Abstract Jean-Nicolas Marjolin was born in Ray-sur-Saone, in eastern France, in 1780. His education was sponsored by his mother as his father had died when he was 1 year old, leaving them impoverished. He studied Medicine at The Commercy Hospital, north-eastern France, before he left for Hôtel-Dieu hospital in Paris where he met Guillaume Dupuytren, who recruited him to the ‘Societe Anatomique’, a society created to promote the study of clinical anatomy. He became, successively, an assistant in anatomy (1805), a prosector (1806) and a doctor (MD) in 1808. He even established his own medical school in 1810. It was very popular as he admitted students from less privileged backgrounds to study medicine for free. His brilliant teaching style caused conflict with his ambitious mentor Dupuytren, who saw him as a threat after he was hired as Dupuytren’s assistant at Hôtel-Dieu. Marjolin was also a member of the Académie de Médecine, and surgeon to Louis-Philippe I, the French king at the time. His son René also became a surgeon and married Cornelia Scheffer, the daughter of the famous painter Ary Scheffer. In 1828, Marjolin described four types of ulcers that he named ‘ulcere verruqueux’ in Mimoires de l’Acadimie de Chirurgie, which was a manual of anatomy at that time. However, he did not specify whether the ulcers were malignant or associated with longstanding ulcers. In 1850, the year that Marjolin died, Robert Smith, Professor of Surgery at Trinity College, Dublin, described locally destructive ulcers that developed in scars following burns, floggings and lacerations as the ‘warty ulcers’ of Marjolin. After Smith’s death in 1873, Marjolin was again forgotten until 30 years later, when John Chalmers DaCosta, Professor of Surgery at Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, described two cases of carcinomatous change in chronic varicose leg ulcers as examples of Marjolin ulcers. John Fordyce, an American dermatologist, subsequently described a chronic ulcer undergoing malignant change as a Marjolin ulcer in 1907. These definitions of Marjolin ulcer by DaCosta and Fordyce included malignancy developing in sinuses, as well as malignancy in scars and persistent ulcers. These declarations defined the term ‘Marjolin ulcer’ in modern usage and preserved Marjolins’ name for future generations. Currently ‘Marjolin ulcer’ refers to a rare malignant transformation within chronic ulcers or scars with squamous cell carcinoma as the commonest subtype. Its exact cause remains unknown, despite being described by Jean-Nicolas Marjolin almost 200 years ago.