Touraine, in 1937, introduced the term "capillarites sclérosantes et atrophiantes" as a heading for diseases typified by a thickening of vessel walls accompanied by an infiltrate of inflammatory cells. [15] He subdivided those conditions into "capillarite pure," which he thought to be the same disease described by Milian as "atrophie blanch," and "capillarite associée," which he thought to appear in diseases like scleroderma and poikiloderma. That classification is rather confusing and is only interesting in the sense that atrophie blanche was classified as a capillaritis. In the French literature of dermatology, the term capillarites was used as a heading for diseases that seemed to affect small vessels. Milian defined capillarites as "inflammation of capillaries" and it is important to know that he used the term "capillaire" (French for 'capillary') as a generic term for small vessels that included lymphatics, arterioles, and venules. French authors, at the beginning of the last century, referred to arterioles as "capillaires artériels" and to venules as "capillaires veineux." As but one example, Touraine, in 1937, defined capillaritis as "alterations of small blood vessels of the skin and manifestations in the skin that result from them." In brief, French dermatologists used capillaritis basically as a synonym for small vessel vasculitis. Confusingly, the term capillaritis more recently has come to be used synonymously with progressive pigmented purpura by some colleagues, [16] even though that condition shows no signs histopathologic of vasculitis.