Page:Archives of dermatology, vol 6.djvu/416

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404 TRANSACTIONS OF THE

teaching, is I think great, for a knowledge of comparative derma- tology may thus be acquired which cannot fail to be of service.

On the first of January, 1871, was opened in Philadelphia the "Dispensary for Skin Diseases," with the writer as physician-in- charge, and subsequently with Dr. Van Harlingen as assistant-phy- sician. This institution was the first of the kind ever established in this city. Upon its register stand now the names of between three and four thousand patients, representing many interesting and rare cases. Clinical lectures and practical instruction were given here by the writer to both students and physicians. The dispensary is still in active operation, being at the present time under the pro- fessional care of Dr. Stelwagon.*

Appointments in our medical schools may here be spoken of, and first 1 would refer to the professorship of dermatology created in this year in Harvard University, to which position Dr. James C. White was elected. The same year Dr. William A. Hardaway was chosen lecturer on skin diseases in the Missouri Medical College, and the writer to the same position in the University of Pennsyl- vania.

In September there was publishedf a translation of the second German edition of Neumann's Lehrbuch der Hautkrankheiten, the translator being Dr. L. D. Bulkley, who, in addition to the work of translation, added copious notes of a practical character, relating chiefly to treatment. With this volume, which was welcomed by the profession, was introduced a knowledge of the modern pathology of skin diseases, the work being particularly valuable as an expo- nent of recent German pathology.

Simultaneously there appeared a republication of the second English edition of Tilbury Fox's excellent treatise on skin diseases, | a book eminently English in spirit, and which viewed the subject from an entirely different standpoint from that of Neumann. At the period of which we are speaking but little original pathological research in skin diseases had been done in England, and the author greatly enhanced the value of his work by utilizing the labors of his German confreres. The volume was edited by Dr. Henry, and was a rare acquisition to our libraries. It was, I need scarcely say, well received, and in 1873 passed into a second American, from the third enlarged and revised English edition.

Here permit me the privilege to pause and speak of the late dis- tinguished author whose treatise has been referred to. The tidings

  • In connection with the subject of the establishment of special dispensaries

for skin diseases, I take pleasure in referring to a note received from Dr. Piffard subsequent to the reading of the " Rise of American Dermatology-," wherein attention is called to the fact that in 1836 the " New York Infirmary for Diseases of the Skin" was established, with Drs. John W. Schmidt, Minturn Post, and Charles Potter as physicians; and that an infirmary for skin diseases was ajso established in Boston, at the corner of "Washington and Winter Streets, in 1837, under the care of Dr. Charles Gordon. (See Boston Medical and Surgical yoUr- nal, Feb. 15 and March 22, 1837.^ f New York, 1871. ' % New York, 187 1.