The Influence of Pott’s Irritation Theory of Occupational Cancer During the 19th Century: A Review with Hypothesis on Albinism Sunlight-Induced Cancer

The alliteratively named Percival Pott [1] wrote his epochal paper on occupational cancer. He had drawn attention to the peculiar liability of chimney sweepers to death from cancer of scrotal origin. As he wrote, “It is a disease which always makes its first attack on, and its first appearance in the inferior part of the scrotum; where it produces a superficial, painful, ragged, ill-looking sore, with hard and rising edges”. “The trade,” he continued, “call it the soot-wart”. As he further surmised, this occupational disease “seems to derive its origin from a lodgment of soot in the rugae of the scrotum”.