Dermatoses due to industrial employment were recog nized early in the sixteenth century by Paracelsus and Agr?cola,1 who described skin disorders occurring in metal and salt miners. Ramazzini,2 in 1700, wrote a treatise on diseases of tradesmen, in which he described with accuracy the dermatoses of bakers, farmers, and other artisans. In 1775 Percivall Pott described chimney-sweep's cancer, and later Robert Willan described the skin affec tions of bakers, shoemakers, washerwomen, and metal workers. Until recently, however, the references to occupational dermatitis were surprisingly scanty. But, latterly very numerous and considerable contributions to the subject have been made in France, Germany, America, and other countries, as well as in Great Britain, where Prosser White's Occupational Diseases of the Shin3 con stitutes a summary of the subject which has a world-wide reputation for its valuable and encyclopaedic information.. The reasons for the increased, interest in these conditions are not far to seek. We live in an age where new industries have a high birth rate. Chemistry and physics have advanced with great rapidity, and these advances are ever being applied to industries of all and every sort. Our bread must be whitened, our leather dyed, our rabbit skins converted into rarer furs, our metal and furniture polished, our faces " lifted," and our hair and complexions transmogrified. Moreover, as has been aptly pointed out by O'Donovan,4 our-modern town homes have been turned into miniature chemical factories..