Aniline and its derivatives and coal tar, their natural mother substance, have demonstrated their ability to produce inflammatory and neoplastic reactions in the skin. In a special class in this category of cutaneous reactions are those in which the skin and adjacent subcutaneous tissues are impregnated with derivatives of aniline from an indelible pencil. The accident of piercing the cutaneous surface with an indelible ink pencil and of breaking off in the tissue of bits of the ink substance is not rare. Abundant records1of such accidents speak for this, as well as for the repeatedly similar course of the reaction to the substance. Intense inflammation and resulting necrosis and fluidification of the involved tissue are the invariable stages which lead to ulceration, extrusion of the foreign dyes via the exudate and ultimate but sluggish healing. Naturally, the amount and the depth of the impregnation and the degree of