:Robert Willan
{{Clean up|date=May 2023|reason=The article isn’t well structured}}{{Short description|English physician (1757–1812)}}
{{about||the officer in the British Army|Robert Hugh Willan|the British surgeon and academic|Robert Joseph Willan}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2016}}{{Use British English|date=October 2016}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Robert Willan
| image = Robert willan.jpg
| caption = Photograph of Robert Willan
| birth_date = 12 November 1757
| birth_place = Sedbergh, Yorkshire, England
| death_date = 7 April 1812
| death_place = Madeira, Portugal
| occupation = Dermatologist
}}
__NOTOC__
Robert Willan {{Post-nominals|post-noms=FRS}} (12 November 1757 near Sedbergh, Yorkshire, England – 7 April 1812 in Madeira, Portugal) was an English physician, and the founder of dermatology as a medical specialty.
Life
Willan was born on 12 November 1757 in Sedbergh, Yorkshire. He was educated at Sedbergh School, and received his medical degree at the University of Edinburgh in 1780. After completing his medical studies, William worked in Darlington until 1783, when he moved to London to serve as physician at the Carey Street Public Dispensary until 1803. While working alongside Thomas Bateman, Willan was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1809. He died on 7 April 1812, in Madeira, Portugal.{{Cite book |title=Dates in medicine: a chronological record of medical progress over three millennia |date=2000 |publisher=Parthenon Publ. Group |isbn=978-1-85070-095-1 |editor-last=Sebastian |editor-first=Anton |editor-link=Anton Sebastian |location=New York}}
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.{{Cite web |title=Robert Willan |url=https://www.nndb.com/people/590/000206969/ |access-date=2023-05-25 |website=www.nndb.com}} Willan and Bateman working together provided the world's first attempt to classify skin diseases from an anatomical standpoint.{{Cite book |last1=Evans |first1=Alfred Spring |title=Viral infections of humans: epidemiology and control |last2=Kaslow |first2=Richard A. |date=1997 |publisher=Plenum medical book company |isbn=978-0-306-44856-0 |edition=4th |location=New York}}
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 who died in 1786 after fasting for 78 days.{{Cite book |last1=Levere |first1=Trevor Harvey |title=Discussing chemistry and steam: the minutes of a coffe house philosophical society, 1780-1787 |last2=Turner |first2=Gerard L'Estrange |date=2002 |publisher=Oxford university press |isbn=978-0-19-851530-2 |location=Oxford}}{{Cite book |last=Silverman |first=Joseph A. |editor-last=Andersen |editor-first=Arnold E. |title=Males with Eating Disorders |chapter=Anorexia Nervosa in the Male: Early Historic Cases |pages=3–8 |date=1990 |publisher=Brunner/Mazel |isbn=978-0-87630-556-0 |series=Eating disorders monograph series no. 4 |location=New York}}
A copy of one of his works was translated into German and published in Breslau in 1799. The English version has been lost.{{cite book|last=Fagge|first=C. Hilton|title=On Disease of the Skin by Ferdinand Hebra, N.D.|publisher=The New Sydenham Society, London}}
In 1798, Willan described the occupational disease psoriasis diffusa, which affects the hands and arms of bakers, and in 1799, he first described the exanthematous rash of childhood known as erythema infectiosum.{{Cite book |title=Dates in infectious diseases |date=2002 |publisher=Parthenon |isbn=978-1-84214-150-2 |editor-last=Lee |editor-first=Helen S. J. |series=Landmarks in medicine series |location=Boca Raton}}
Willan's 1808 book, On Cutaneous Diseases is a landmark in the history of dermatology and in medical illustration and contains the first use of the word "lupus" to describe cutaneous tuberculosis.{{Cite book |last=Bateman |first=Thomas |author-link=Thomas Bateman (physician) |others=L.L. Sailliar (engraver) |url=http://archive.org/details/bub_gb_UTIAAAAAQAAJ |title=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 |location=London |date=1817 |publisher=Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green}}
See also
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{cite web |url=http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/1015.html |title=Robert Willan |last=Enersen |first=Ole Daniel |author-link=Ole Daniel Enersen |date= |website=Who Named It |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020427174015/http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/1015.html |archive-date=2002-04-27}}
- {{cite journal |last=Holubar |first=Karl |date=January 1998 |title=Robert Willan's Description and Treatment of Cutaneous Diseases 1797/1798: A Bicentennial |url=https://www.jidonline.org/action/showPdf?pii=S0022-202X%2815%2939995-4 |journal=Journal of Investigative Dermatology |volume=110 |issue=1 |pages=101 |doi=10.1046/j.1523-1747.1998.00081.x|doi-access=free |pmid=9424100 }}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Willan, Robert}}
Category:English dermatologists
Category:Fellows of the Royal Society
Category:18th-century English people
Category:19th-century English people
Category:18th-century English medical doctors