However, one example lies in a 1960s examination of nine Peruvian mummies, radiocarbon dated to be approximately 2400 years old, which showed apparent signs of melanoma: melanotic masses in the skin and diffuse metastases to the bones.John Hunter is reported to be the first to operate on metastatic melanoma in 1787. Although not knowing precisely what it was, he described it as a "cancerous fungous excrescence". The excised tumor was preserved in the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. It was not until 1968 that microscopic examination of the specimen revealed it to be an example of metastatic melanoma.The French physician René Laennec was the first to describe melanoma as a disease entity. His report was initially presented during a lecture for the Faculté de Médecine de Paris in 1804 and then published as a bulletin in 1806.The first English-language report of melanoma was presented by an English general practitioner from Stourbridge, William Norris in 1820. In his later work in 1857 he remarked that there is a familial predisposition for development of melanoma (Eight Cases of Melanosis with Pathological and Therapeutical Remarks on That Disease). Norris was also a pioneer in suggesting a link between nevi and melanoma and the possibility of a relationship between melanoma and environmental exposures, by observing that most of his patients had pale complexions. He also described that melanomas could be amelanotic and later showed the metastatic nature of melanoma by observing that they can disseminate to other visceral organs.
You better go easy on that stuff," with Mattie replying, "Wyatt, leave me alone..."
In the film From Hell (2001), Inspector Abberline is a user of laudanum, and Jack the Ripper also uses laudanum for making his victims sleepy. In the TV series Deadwood, the town doctor recommends laudanum several times, bringing a bottle of it to a patient. Initially in the series, Alma Garrett is an addict to laudanum. Trixie is a former addict. In Dan Simmonss novel Drood (2009) the narrator Wilkie Collins takes laudanum daily to alleviate a wide variety of pains as well as to induce sleep. In the horror video-game Amnesia: The Dark Descent (2010), laudanum can be found at several places in the castle, and can be used to regain health. In the role-playing video-game Darkest Dungeon (2016), laudanum is a provision that is used to cure Horror, a stress-over-time negative effect. The role of laudanum is revisited in Darkest Dungeon 2. In the browser-based role-playing video game Fallen London, the main character can take laudanum to decrease Nightmares, a negative stat, at the cost of increasing Wounds, another negative stat. In Eleanor Cattons novel The Luminaries (2013), and the subsequent TV adaptation (2020), many characters are addicted to laudanum and it is used to murder Crosbie Wells. In Sara Collins novel The Confessions of Frannie Langton (2019), the titular character becomes addicted to laudanum. In the film The Highwaymen (2019), Bonnie Parker (Emily Brobst) of Bonnie and Clyde fame is addicted to laudanum.