 In some cases, however, a condition that was thought to be due to diet or environment was later linked to a genetic polymorphism, as in African iron overload.The disease was first described in 1865 by Armand Trousseau in a report on diabetes in patients presenting with a bronze pigmentation of their skin.Trousseau did not associate diabetes with iron accumulation; the recognition that infiltration of the pancreas with iron might disrupt endocrine function resulting in diabetes was made by Friedrich Daniel von Recklinghausen in 1890.