The term "capillaritis alba" was used by Ellerbroek, in 1953, as a synonym for "atrophie blanche Milian" when he presented seven patients with the condition at a meeting of the northwest German society of dermatology. [17] He questioned whether the disease was a manifestation primarily of varicosis and emphasized that the pain associated with the lesions might be a hint to the essential nature of it, which he thought was "processes at the capillaries." In the discussion of the findings in these patients, Herzberg commented that the finding of fibrin in the walls of vessels encountered in biopsy specimens taken from lesions of those patients favored the interpretation that the condition represented a distinctive disease entity different from changes found in patients with varicosis. The observations by Ellerbroek are very similar to those made by Gougerot [14] and Schuppener [18] (see also capillarite télangiectasique et atrophiante, atrophia alba, and livedo vasculitis).