pheochromocytoma

Note: The term was introduced by the German pathologist Ludwig Pick (1868-1944) in "Das Ganglioma embryonale sympathicum (Sympathoma embrionale)," Berliner klinische Wochenschrift, 49. Jahrgang, Nr. 1 (January 1, 1912), p. 21/2. Pick paraphrases phäochrom as chrombraun, suggesting that phäo- is taken to mean braun "brown." This somewhat misleading reading of the Greek word goes back to the original use of phäochrom, by the anatomist Heinrich Poll, in an account of the developmental history of the adrenal glands in vertebrates ("Die vergleichende Entwickelungsgeschichte der Nebennierensysteme der Wirbeltiere," chapter two, part two of Handbuch der vergleichenden und experimentellen Entwickelungslehre der Wirbeltiere, edited by Oskar Hertwig, 3. Band, 1. Teil, p. 444). In discussing cells from the medulla of the adrenal glands, which turn a bright yellow to dark brown when treated with chromium salts ("eine intensive hellgelbe bis dunkelbraune Färbung"), Poll says the following: "Diese Eigenschaft entdeckte Jakob Henle im Jahre 1865, Stilling (1890) nannte die Zellen chromophil, Kohn (1898) neuerdings chromaffin: eindeutig und einsprachig können sie als phäochrome [footnote: "von φαιός = braun, und dem Namen des Elements „Chrom".], deutsch etwa als chrombraune Zellen bezeichnet werden." ("This property was discovered by Jakob Henle in 1865, Stilling (1890) named the cells chromophil, Kohn (1898) more recently chromaffin: the cells can be designated unambiguously and using a single language [i.e., Greek] as pheochrome [footnote: "from phaiós = brown, and the name of the element chromium"], in German approximately as chrome-brown.") Though "braun" is given as a possible translation of Greek phaiós in, for example, Franz Passow's widely used Handwörterbuch der griechischen Sprache (5th edition, 1857), the fuller characterization is "schummrig, dämmerig, zwischen Licht und Dunkel, daher von jeder Farbe zwischen schwarz und weiss, schwärzlich, schwarzgrau, grau, braun" ("dusky, twilight, between light and dark, hence of every color between black and white, blackish, gray-black, gray, brown").