Primary cutaneous virilism or idiopathic hirsuties?

Ideas have a life-cycle: they stimulate understanding in their youth but become stale and inhibitory with age. The same is true of the names of diseases which spring from these ideas. Following on some of our own recent studies, and in particular in the course of presenting them at seminars and lectures, it became apparent that the term "idiopathic hirsuties" has now outlived its usefulness let alone its credibility. The purpose of this note is to propose the new and I believe more correct and stimulating term of "primary cutaneous virilism," of which the old idiopathic hirsuties is just one symptom.