IN THIS study we have directed our effort toward clarification of a syndrome most appropriately termed follicular lichen planus, which has been the subject of considerable discussion since the turn of the century. The British and American authors who kept the discussion alive have progressively contributed to the better understanding of the disease. In the following brief historical review, we will evaluate the accumulated material which helped crystallize our concept of the disease. The disorder was labeled lichen planopilaris by Pringle1in 1895. At a meeting of the Dermatological Section of the Royal Society of Medicine on April 15, 1915, Little2presented a patient showing "cicatricial alopecia" of the scalp, together with a follicular eruption on the body, indistinguishable clinically from lichen spinulosus. The relation of the follicular lesions of the scalp to the follicular lesions of the body was debated, and Little expressed the opinion of the