Melanins: an old problem revisited or the usefulness of infrared spectroscopy.

This mini review remembers the implication, thirty nine years ago, of professor Wegmann in a fascinating adventure on the serendipitous study of melanin, after that a case of Dubin-Johnson's icterus had been submitted to him. To this investigation have been applied, one after the other and often simultaneously, for the first time, the diverse technologies of pathology, histochemistry, histoenzymology, biochemistry and infrared spectrography, having permitted to detect for the first time melanin in a human liver, associated with a melaninuria. But it was thanks to a marvellous collaboration with many colleagues that we came to a good end. It was the beginning of the interdisciplinary science of Cellular and Molecular Biology. To day remains to explain the mechanisms leading to the formation of melanin in liver and spleen.