MASTER DERMATOLOGISTS* BASED ON DISEASES NAMED AFTER THEM By HERMAN GOODMAN, M.D. NEW YORK CITY OR little more than a year, I have lyric and dramatic poetry, sculpture and been collecting material for a architecture. Hippocrates lived in this paper on “Eponyms of Derma- period. The “Father of Recent Medicine” tology,”1 and have especially has icterus gravis named after him as arranged some of the data in concise formHippocratic morbus niger. Calvities Hippo- Fand in chronological order for the Anna ls cratica is the designation of a type of total of Medic al His tory . The names of the baldness and Hippocratic nails are those men cited have come down to us by reason resulting from chronic pulmonary and of the fact that one or more dermatologic cardiac disease. Hippocrates was born on entities or diseases have been named after the Island of Cos about 460 b .c . After them; literally, they are godfathers of the death of his father, he went to Athens dermatology. The names of many master for the study of surgery. The profession of dermatologists who did not have diseases medicine owes to him the art of clinical named after them have been omitted in inspection and observation. The physician’s this article, but I hope at some future date oath has been named the Hippocratic oath, to enlarge on the present study by present- but it is far-fetched to consider him its ing others on the eponyms of dermatologic author. Hippocrates was the founder of anatomy, pathology and therapeutics. Grecian dermatology. His influence per- sisted for over two thousand years. His was The Begi nnin g of Recent Hist orical the period of symptomatic designation of Dermat ol og y diseases of the skin and some of the European medicine began in Greece at names such as alopecia, psora and lepra the time of her highest civilization, the (scaly disease), persist. Hippocrates died period of her supremacy in philosophy, 377 b .c . *Read before a stated meeting of the Section of No other name of the classical period of Historical Medicine of the New York Academy of medicine comes to us in dermatology. After Medicine, April 24, 1924. the destruction of Corinth (146 b .c .), Rome 1Eponyms of dermatology (an alphabetical ar- became the center of medical learn- rangement with many details, references, and illus- trations). Arch. Dermat. & Sypb., Chic., ix, vi, 675, ing, and although Roman medicine was June, 1924. almost entirely in the hands of Greeks, the name of a Roman litterateur comes next the centuries which saw the fall of the in our eponyms. Western Roman Empire (476 a .d .), the birth Aurelius Cornelius Celsus was born about of Mohammed (570), the Crusades (1096- 53 b .c ., and died about 7 a .d . This was 1271), Magna Charta (1215), Dante (1265- about the time of the reign of Tiberius 1321), the Black Death (1348-1350), Michel- Caesar. Celsus was a general student and angelo (1475-1564), the invention of print- not a physician. His knowledge of medicine ing (1448), the discovery of America, was practically complete, for the time, and Shakespeare (1564-1616), Francis Bacon, his writings are the oldest medical docu- Rembrandt (1607-1669), the landing of the ments after those of Hippocrates. Many Pilgrims, Spinoza (1632-1677), Newton advances in dermatology are recorded in (1642-1727), the Great Plague and the the script of Celsus. In the sixth book Great Fire of London (1665), Voltaire Celsus deals with the diseases of the skin (1694-1778), and the invention of the fire and the venereal diseases: some forty skin engine (1710). In medicine, these were the diseases are described. One may recognize, centuries of formation of hospitals and under various designations and groupings, universities far too numerous to mention, the ophiasis type of alopecia areata, ery- the European pandemic of syphilis (1496— thema multiforme, rheumatic affection, fu- 1500), the birth of gross anatomy and legal runcle, carbuncle, anthrax, tuberculous ulcer, dissection, the invention of the microscope, bubo, condyloma acuminatum, verruca vul- the transfusion of blood, and inocula- garis and clavus; the bullous diseases as tion for smallpox (Lady Mary Wortley miliaria, vesicular eczema, dermatitis ven- Montagu). enata, dermatitis calorica and dermatitis congelationis. Of the venereal diseases, such PoST-HIPPOCRATIC OR PoST-HUMORAL PERIOD OF local affections as ulcus molle, genital Dermat olo gy abscess, phimosis, etc., were known. Alo- Hieronymus Mercurialis had had his book pecia areata is still area Celsi; kerion Celsi on cutaneous diseases published by one of is trichophytosis, and vitiligo Celsi is anes- his pupils (1571) long before we have the thetic leprosy, although the term leprosy next dermatologic eponym, Werlhoff’s was not used by Celsus. disease, or purpura hemorrhagica. Paul In this old period, we have another Greek, Gottlieb Werlhoff was born in Germany in one whose work is closest to that of Hippoc- 1699, and died in 1767. He was a good rates, the clinician. Aretaeus was born in student, a trained observer, a talented Cappadocia about the second half of the physician, a recognized teacher and a writer. first century (30-90 a .d .). He lived toward The reference we have is a dissertation the close of the reign of Nero, and was dated 1735, from Brunswick. known to have resided in Alexandria. He In the next interim, Daniel Turner pub- was a good clinician and an attractive medical lished the first English book on dermatology author. He described symptoms accurately, (1714). We have come to the period of the and the descriptions are readily recognized. invention of the steam engine by Watt He gave excellent accounts of pneumonia, (1765), and have Pott’s disease, or chimney- pleurisy with empyema, diabetes, tetanus, sweep cancer of the scrotum. Percival Pott diphtheria, the aura of epilepsy and very was born in 1713, and died in 1788. He was full descriptions of various types of insanity. surgeon in St. Bartholomew’s and was The eponym we have is elephantiasis recognized as a genius. He was a teacher of Aretaei, or nodular leprosy. Aretaeus had a John Hunter. Pott is remembered as the treatment for leprosy which was classical. describer of Pott’s fracture. It was while In our recital of dermatologic eponyms confined to bed, a victim of the fracture of disease, we must pass over as fruitless which he described, that Pott took the time to record some of his experiences, including in 1812. He was an English Quaker. He has that of the skin affection with which his been variously called the creator of derma- name is associated. tology, or perhaps more truthfully, the ini- This is the time, too, of the Hunterian tiator of the new era in dermatology, and chancre, a type of chancre of syphilis. John founder of the modern epoch in skin Hunter was born in Scotland in 1728. He diseases. Willan gave the first valuable became a pupil, and later assistant, of his classification of skin diseases, and was the brilliant brother William, whom John sur- first to attempt a complete classification passed as a surgeon. Hunter personally on Plenck’s system. Willan was famous prepared over ten thousand museum speci- for his judicious selection and accurate mens at a cost of £70,000. John Hunter definition of terms. He extricated psoriasis made numerous studies, but his name comes from the heterogenous group of skin to us as that of the man who differentiated diseases. He divided the purpuras into the hard or Hunterian chancre from chan- simplex and hemorrhagica. He cleared up croid, but he confounded gonorrhea with the nature of eczema for his time. He syphilis. At the age of forty, he inoculated distinguished lupus, hence Willan’s lupus. himself in the famous experiment of using He distinguished tinea versicolor from other supposedly gonorrheal pus on a non-mucous pigmentary diseases. He gave the original surface, and acquired syphilis. He developed description of prurigo mitis. Under the name angina pectoris, and died in a fit of anger of icthyosis cornea, Willan quoted the first in 1793- known case of scleroderma, that of Curcia The year of the American Revolution in Naples in 1752. saw the publication of the classification of Linked with Willan is the name of his diseases of the skin by Plenck, the inspira- friend and pupil, Bateman, for whom tion of many later systems and schemes of Bateman’s disease, or molluscum contagio- the specialty. It is the period of Priestley’s sum, is named. Thomas Bateman was work on the isolation of oxygen, nitrous born in England in 1778. His thesis was on oxide and ammonia. It is the time of the subject of the hemorrhages of petecheal Chabert’s disease, or symptomatic anthrax. type. Other diseases known as Bateman’s Philibert Chabert was born in France in disease are: purpura senilis; alopecia areata; 1737. He was probably the most celebrated ecthyma; herpes iris; and lichen urticatus. veterinary specialist of his time. He has also Bateman knew chilitis exfoliativa as psoria- Oleum contra taenium Chaberti named after sis labialis. Bateman was a worthy successor him. He died in 1814. to Willan, and not only completed and The year Cavendish discovered hydrogen, amplified the teachings of his senior, but Underwood gave us sclerema neonatorum, published his writings as well. Bateman died or Underwood’s disease. Michael Under- in 1821. wood was born in 1737 and died in 1820. The year of the invention of the steam- He was a London pediatrician. The disease boat by Fulton gave us Alibert’s disease, was first called “hidebound.” Until 1877, or mycosis fungoides. Jean Louis Alibert it was mistaken for edema neonatorum, was born in France in 1766.