Robert Willan

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Robert Willan

Robert Willan (born November 12, 1757 in "The Hill" near Sedbergh , Yorkshire , † April 7, 1812 in Madeira ) was an English doctor and is considered the founder of dermatology as a medical specialty.

Life

From 1777 the son of an obstetrician studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and received his doctorate there in 1780. After a short stay in London , Willan practiced in Darlington from 1781 and dealt with medicinal water before he moved back to London in 1783. Here he worked as a doctor at the newly established Carey Street Public Dispensary . Here he worked and taught together with Thomas Bateman .

After Willan had suffered from tuberculosis for some time , he went on a recreational trip to Spain. During this trip he died in Madeira Island in 1812.

Services

Engraving of Milchschorfs ( Porrigo larvalis ) in Delineations of Cutaneous Diseases .

Together with Thomas Bateman, Willan developed the world's first approach to classifying skin diseases according to an anatomical perspective.

Willan's book On Cutaneous Diseases from 1808 is considered a landmark in the history of dermatology and medical illustration . Some of the nomenclature presented by him in this work is still used today. One example is pityriasis versicolor (bran fungus). The work also contains the first use of the word lupus to describe skin tuberculosis ( lupus vulgaris ).

Willan is considered to be the first to describe several diseases. In 1790 he published a report ( "A Remarkable Case of Abstinence" ) about a young Englishman who died in 1786 after fasting for 78 days - one of the first descriptions of eating disorders in male patients. In 1798, Willan described the occupational skin disease psoriasis diffusa , which occurs on the hands and arms of bakers . In 1799 he was the first to describe the typical rash of ringlet rubella . In addition, Willan first described the clinical presentation of atopic eczema .

In addition to dermatology, Willan has published work on the epidemiology of digestive tract diseases in the London population, as well as on smallpox vaccination .

For the classification of skin diseases Willan received the Fothergillian Gold Medal from the Medical Society of London in 1790 . In 1809 he was admitted to the Royal Society as an elected fellow .

After his death, Thomas Bateman continued Willan's work and published further results from Willan's estate. So he completed a series started by Willan with illustrations of skin diseases, which appeared in 1817 under the title Delineations of Cutaneous Diseases .

supporting documents

literature

  • Evans, AS and Kaslow, RA (1997). Viral Infections of Humans . Jumper. ISBN 0-306-44856-4 .
  • Lee, HSJ (Ed.). (2002). Dates in Infectious Diseases: A Chronological Record of Progress in Infectious Diseases Over the Last Millennium . Taylor & Francis. ISBN 1-84214-150-3 .
  • Levere, T., Turner L'E, G. (2002). Discussing Chemistry and Steam: The Minutes of a Coffee House Philosophical Society 1780–1787 . Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-851530-8 .
  • Porter, R. and Bynum, WF (Eds.). (2002). William Hunter and the Eighteenth-Century Medical World . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-52517-9 .
  • Sebastian, A. (2000). Dates in Medicine . Taylor and Francis. ISBN 1-85070-095-8 .
  • Silverman, JA (1990). Anorexia Nervosa in the Male: Early Historic Cases. In Andersen, AE (Ed.). Males with Eating Disorders (pp. 3-8). ISBN 0-87630-556-7 .
  • Barbara I. Tshisuaka: Willan, Robert. In: Werner E. Gerabek (Hrsg.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2004, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 1498 f.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Robert Willan, Thomas Bateman: Delineations of Cutaneous Diseases . Oxford University 1817 PDF
  2. ↑ Johannes Ring : Handbook of atopic eczema. Chapter 2: The History of Atopic Eczema / Dermatitis Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg / New York 2006, ISBN 3-540-23133-1
  3. ^ JH Baron, A. Sonnenberg: Alimentary diseases in the poor and middle class in London 1773-1815, and in New York poor 1797-1818 . In: Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics , Volume 16, Issue 10, Page 1709-1714, Oct 2002, doi: 10.1046 / j.1365-2036.2002.01343.x

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Willan, Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English doctor and founder of dermatology
DATE OF BIRTH November 12, 1757
PLACE OF BIRTH Sedbergh
DATE OF DEATH April 7, 1812
Place of death Madeira