Historical Highlights

1572: The first printed book on dermatology, De Morbis Cutaneis, was published by Geronimo Mercuriali. He later presided over a disastrous medical response to the plague in Venice in 1576.

Eighteenth Century: Dermatology Emerges as a Specialty.

Skin diseases were usually dealt with by general physicians. Daniel Turner (1667–1740) trained as a surgeon, but in 1712 published the first skin disease book in English, A Treatise of Diseases Incident to the Skin, with detailed treatment recipes (Figure 3.1).

Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: Classification War.

Across science there was a huge drive to classify, in dermatology led by Joseph Plenck (1735–1807) from Vienna. Rival French and English classifications of skin disease were published; Robert Willan’s (1757–1812) system (based on Plenck’s) eventually won. Many of the disease names are still in use, including their mistakes (e.g. mycosis fungoides meaning ‘fungus fungus’, now known to be a T-cell lymphoma). Willan first described erythema nodosum.

Thomas Bateman (1778–1821) described molluscum contagiosum, alopecia areata and senile purpura. Clinical illustrations from the Sydenham Society Atlas (Figures 3.2 and 3.3) are still accurate.

Nineteenth Century: German, Austrian and French Dominance.

Many skin diseases are named after the French or German dermatologists who first described them. Von Hebra (1816–1880) founded the influential Vienna Dermatology School and discovered the cause of scabies. In London, Erasmus Wilson (1809–1884), founded the Journal of Cutaneous Medicine and brought Cleopatra’s Needle from Egypt to London (Figure 3.4). John Pringle described adenoma sebaceum (Figures 3.5, 3.6).