History of dermatology

The history of dermatology is the history of mankind. The history of dermatology can only be distinguished from the history of medicine at the beginning of the 19th century when dermatology like the other specialties began to be recognized as a specialities branch of medicine.

The invention of writings coincided with early cities in Africa. Early texts were mainly for administration or religious purposes, but medical writings soon appeared, Many of them related to skin disorders.

There was initial age of medicine dominated by magic, followed by the growth of rational medicine led by Hippocrates around 400 C. Hippocratic writings contained a number of passages which refer to cutaneous disorders. He divided skin disease into two types: local and constitutional. Local means those with an independent existence while constitutional means that those occur due to elimination of disease.

Aristotle (383-322 BC) too was aware of the hormonal association of baldness. He noticed that either normal women or eunuchs went bald and that both were unable to grow hair on their chest.

A group of brilliant doctors in Padua, including Vesalius and Mercurialis, set up a system of learning and wrote medical texts that revitalized medicine in Europe. Mercurialis wrote De Morbis Cuteneis in 1572: this summarized work of early writers and has focus on hair disorders, but still represents the first dermatology textbook in the west since the time of Paul of Aegina, 800 years before.

In 1817, Robert Willan produced images of skin diseases in his textbook, the first dermatology atlas that was completed by Bateman. This atlas went through many editions and was still in print in 1877.

At the beginning of the 20th century, dermatology was developing in most European and North American countries with fledging dermatology societies and dermatology journals.
History of dermatology

Biography of Aristotle (384-322 BC)

Aristotle (384-322 BC)
Aristotle born in 384 BC at Stagira, a Greek town not far from the borders of the semi barbarian kingdom of Macedonia.

Aristotle grew up under the influence of the Hippocratic tradition of medicine which is father practiced and which may well have influenced him but its emphasis on empirical investigation and respect for the evidence of concrete particularities.

Aristotle arrived in Athens in 367 to join Plato’s Academy as a student. He stayed, so the tradition goes, for twenty years and these two decades formed the first great phase of his intellectual career.

Aristotle followed closely after Hippocrates and although not himself a physician, had a profound effect on medical thought and practice for succeeding centuries.

Indeed he can regarded as one of the greatest scientific geniuses the world has ever seen.

Although Aristotle never dissected a human being, he carried out anatomical studies of a wide range of animals, laid the foundation of embryology by studying the developing chick, and gave an accurate account of the life of bees.

He laid the basis of the doctrine of evolution, describe a ladder of nature ascending through lower plants, higher plants, insects, fish, mammals to man.

This period of Aristotle’s life came to an end with the death of Plato and the succession of Plato’s nephew Speusippus to the headship of the academy.

He left Athens, accompanied by Xenocrates and went to Atarnea, in Mysia, to his friend and fellow disciple, Hermias, the ruler of that town , whose sister or niece, Pyhtias, h subsequently married.

After the fall and death of Hermias (345 BC) Aristotle went to Mytilene. From there he returned to Athens and open the school of rhetoric, in which he set up as an opponent to Isocrates.
Biography of Aristotle (384-322 BC)

Aristotle and the end of Athens

Aristotle and the end of Athens
Aristotle (384-322 BC) followed closely after Hippocrates and although not himself a physician, had a profound effect on medical thought and practice for succeeding centuries.

Indeed he can regarded as one of the greatest scientific geniuses the world has ever seen. Aristotle was the son of a physician, and a pupil of Plato; later he became tutor to the young Alexander the Great.

Although Aristotle never dissected a human being, he carried out anatomical studies of a wide range of animals, laid the foundation of embryology by studying the developing chick, and gave an accurate account of the life of bees.

He laid the basis of the doctrine of evolution, describe a ladder of nature ascending through lower plants, higher plants, insects, fish, mammals to man.

Soon after the deaths of Hippocrates and Aristotle. The great days of Athens drew to an end. The Macedonian, Alexander the Great the pupil of Aristotle conquered Greece, Asia Minor and Egypt, marched through Persia and reached India.

In his progress he founded a string of at least 17 Alexandria but it was Alexandria of Egypt that was by far the most important.

After the death of Alexander, one of his generals, Ptolemy declared himself Pharaoh, took up residence in Alexandria and there founded a great medical school and library at about 300 BC; into these institutions were imported scientist, mainly from Greece.

Unfortunately the vast library said to have contained some 700 000 manuscripts, was burned by a mob of fanatics intent on destroying the past, a phenomenon not unknown in later periods of history.

We have to rely, therefore on the writings of Galen and other authors to learn something of the Alexandria school of medicine.

Of particular fame were two surgeons, Herophilos and Erasistratos, both of whom flourished around 300 BC.

Their most important contribution was systematic dissection of human bodies; indeed, Celsus states that they actually performed vivisections on condemned criminals.

Herophilus named the duodenum and prostate and established the brain as the center of consciousness; his name survives in one of the venous sinuses of the brain.

Erasistratos is regarded by some as the founder of physiology; he distinguished the cerebrum from the cerebellum, noted the difference between sensory and motor nerves, and gave a good description of the heart valves.

With the absorption of Egypt into Roman Empire in 50 BC and with death of Cleopatra in 30 BC, marking the end of the Ptolemaic dynasty, Alexandria ceased to have medical influence and Rome became of central importance.
Aristotle and the end of Athens