Human pigmentation diseases, such as vitiligo, have been described for over 3,000 years by different cultures around the world. Some famous texts, as the Eber Papyrus, Atharva Veda or even the Bible, provide a description of “white spotted-diseases” that could include cases of vitiligo. Celsus was the first to use the word “vitiligo” in the first century A.C. and Moriz Kaposi was one of the first to describe the histopathologic features of vitiligo.

• Descriptions of human pigmentation diseases have been made for thousands of years.
• The first descriptions of what seems to be vitiligo were written approximately 3000 years ago in the Egyptian text Eber Papyrus^[1] and in the Indian Vedic text Atharva Veda.^[2]
• The Indian text, the Charak Samhita (800 B.C), describes “spreading whiteness” using the Sanskrit word “svitra”.
• The bible mentions a variety of skin diseases, such as leprosy, psoriasis and vitiligo, using one word: “Zara’at“, which means “white spots”.^[3]
• Celsus was the first to use the word “vitiligo” in his book De Medicina (100 A.C.).
• The word “vitiligo” may have been derived from:^[4][5]
  • Vituli: white glistening of the flesh of calves
  • Vitelius: calf
  • VItum: blemish
  • Vitulum: small blemish
• Moriz Kaposi was on of the first to describe the histopathology of vitiligo as a “lack of pigmented granules” in the skin.^[5]
• Damage to periphereal nerves was the first theory that attempted to explain the pathogenesis of vitiligo.^[6]
• The relationship between autoimmune diseases and vitiligo was observed later in history

• In India, they still call vitiligo “sweta kushta” (white leprosy) and women suffering this disease are discriminated against.^[7]
• During the Middle Age in Europe patients with vitiligo were probably diagnosed with leprosy and discriminated against. They were forbidden to work which made them homeless.^[8]
• Other societies, such as Koreans and Germans, were more tolerant with vitiligo patients, as there are portraits of persons who may have had vitiligo. ^[9][10]

• The case of Henry Moss: An African-American, born in Virginia, who at the age of 38 developed vitiligo and started to use his body as an attraction, showing his lesions and charging fees. His case was used as a cornerstone for the debate about the origin of white and black skin. Samuel Stanhope Smith, an American philosopher, said that Henry Moss was the prove that, black skin can turn to white skin. Doctor Benjamin Rush thought that black skin was a form of leprosy and Henry Moss had begun to recover of it. ^[11]