ELSON B. HELWIG’s scientific contributions

The pluripotentiality of the cutaneous organ is well illustrated by the many epithelial structures it can form. This is seen not only in normal skin but in cutaneous neoplasms as well.Neoplasms with microscopic features that indicate both epithelial and mesenchymal origin have been referred to as mixed tumors.1 The term has been applied not only to those of the skin but also to many tumors unrelated to skin or to one another, i.e., basosquamous carcinoma, mixed tumors of salivary gland, mixed tumors of kidney, and other tumors with a mixture of cell types.In this paper we are reporting a study of a cutaneous tumor that has been referred to as mixed tumor of skin, salivary gland type. Because the tumor is relatively uncommon, it has not been investigated in all of its aspects. On the basis of a large collection we have been able to evaluate the