The History of Psoriasis

Abstract

Our current understanding of psoriasis has only been established recently in the course of its history. The intent of this article is to take a historical look at the timeline of how psoriasis came to be what we know it as today. It discusses the evolution of our understanding of the pathogenesis of psoriasis and the various treatment modalities that have been further fine-tuned overtime. The article concludes with a discussion about the more novel biologic therapies used currently and treatments for the future. It is clear by its puzzling history that psoriasis is no simple disease. It is useful to be cognizant of the mistakes of our predecessors as confusion about the disease dates back thousands of years. Ongoing research continues to recognize more about this conundrum, which we finally agreed to call psoriasis in the last century.