Robert Willan

Robert Willan FRS (12 November 1757, near Sedbergh, Yorkshire – 7 April 1812, in Madeira) was an English physician, and the founder of dermatology as a medical specialty.

For the officer in the British Army, see Robert Hugh Willan. For the British surgeon and academic, see Robert Joseph Willan.

Robert Willian
Photograph of Robert Willan
Born12 November 1757
Sedbergh, Yorkshire, England
Died7 April 1812
Madeira, Portugal
OccupationDermatologist

Life

Willian was born 12 November 1757 in Sedbergh Yorkshire. He was educated at Sedbergh School, and received his medical degree at Edinburgh in 1780. From 1781 he practised medicine in Darlington and then moved to London in 1783 as physician to the new Carey Street Public Dispensary, where he remained until 1803 teaching alongside Thomas Bateman. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1809. Willian died on 7 April 1812, in Madeira, Portugal.[1]

Works

Following the example of Carl Linnaeus, Willan attempted a taxonomic classification of skin diseases, describing impetigo, lupus, psoriasis, scleroderma, ichthyosis, sycosis, and pemphigus. Willan's portrait was reproduced on the cover of the British Journal of Dermatology for many years.[2] Willan and Bateman working together provided the world's first attempt to classify skin diseases from an anatomical standpoint.[3]

In 1790, Willan received the Fothergill Gold Medal from the Medical Society of London for his classification of skin diseases. In the same year he published an account entitled "A Remarkable Case of Abstinence", which detailed the case of a young Englishman with an eating disorder died in 1786 after fasting for 78 days.[4][5]

A copy of one of his works was translated into German and published in Breslau in 1799. The English version has been lost.[6]

In 1798, Willan described the occupational disease psoriasis diffusa, which affects the hands and arms of bakers, and in 1799 first described the exanthematous rash of childhood known as erythema infectiosum.[7]

Willan's 1808 book, On Cutaneous Diseases. The book also contains the first use of the word "lupus" to describe cutaneous tuberculosis.[8]

See also

References
  1. Sebastian, Anton, ed. (2000). Dates in medicine: a chronological record of medical progress over three millennia. New York: Parthenon Publ. Group. ISBN 978-1-85070-095-1.
  2. "Robert Willan". www.nndb.com. Retrieved 25 May 2023.
  3. Evans, Alfred Spring; Kaslow, Richard A. (1997). Viral infections of humans: epidemiology and control (4th ed.). New York: Plenum medical book company. ISBN 978-0-306-44856-0.
  4. Levere, Trevor Harvey; Turner, Gerard L'Estrange (2002). Discussing chemistry and steam: the minutes of a coffe house philosophical society, 1780-1787. Oxford: Oxford university press. ISBN 978-0-19-851530-2.
  5. Andersen, Arnold E. (1990). Males with eating disorders. Eating disorders monograph series. New York: Brunner/Mazel. ISBN 978-0-87630-556-0.
  6. Fagge, C. Hilton. On Disease of the Skin by Ferdinand Hebra, N.D. The New Sydenham Society, London.
  7. Lee, Helen S. J., ed. (2002). Dates in infectious diseases. Landmarks in medicine series. Boca Raton: Parthenon. ISBN 978-1-84214-150-2.
  8. L.L. Sailliar (engraver) (1817). Delineations of Cutaneous Diseases Exhibiting the Characteristic Appearances of the Principal Genera and Species Comprised in the Classification of the Late Dr. Willan; and Completing the Series of Engravings Begun by that Author. Oxford University. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, Paternoster-Row.
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