Sulzberger and Wolf

 
"The malignant mole is one of the most serious lesions we [physicians] are called upon to treat. Often metastasis has taken place before the physician is consulted. The outlook is bad, if not invariably fatal. If small, early lesions are excised in toto, with a wide margin, some cases will be cured. . ."
 
"Malignant melanomas are usually heavily pigmented, bluish to black, rapidly growing tumors."
 
Sulzberger MB, Wolf J. Dermatology Essentials of Diagnosis and Treatment. Chicago: The Year Book Publishers, Inc., 1952:385.
 

Brief critique

 
The term "malignant mole" is an oxymoron; a mole is a colloquial expression employed by the laity and by indiscriminant physicians for a melanocytic nevus, and a melanocytic nevus, by definition, is benign. In short, a melanoma is not a malignant mole. According to Sulzberger and Wolf, on the basis of their experience prior to 1952, when patients with a primary melanoma present themselves to a physician, the neoplasm already had metastasized and the "outlook is bad, if not invariably fatal." They understood, properly, that if "small, early lesions are excised in toto . . . some cases will be cured . . ." In fact, all macules of melanoma that are devoid of signs of regression are curable by simple excision with a narrow margin. Never is a "wide margin" necessary for removal of melanoma, irrespective of the thickness of it; excision in toto is what is necessary.