Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1946

SIR JONATHAN HUTCHINSON (1828-1913) Atlas of skin diseases. New Sydenham Society [1860-1864] 1 portfolio (49 leaves of col. plates). 58.5 cm.

Sir William Osler (see No. 2120 ff.), in an address on the importance of postgraduate study delivered at the opening of the Museums of the Medical Graduates' College and Polyclinic in July 1900, said of Hutchinson "In the broad scope of his work, in the untiring zeal with which he has studied the natural phenomena of disease, in his love for specimens and collections, Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson, bears a strong likeness to the immortal Hunter. No individual contributor in this country has made so many careful observations upon so many diseases. He is the only great generalized specialist which the profession has produced, and his works are a storehouse upon which the surgeon, the physician, the neurologist, the dermatologist, and other specialists freely draw" (Sir William Osler, An address on the importance of postgraduate study. Reprinted from Lancet (July 14, 1900), p. 5). Dermatology was among Hutchinson's many medical and scientific interests and he made a number of clinical contributions which included descriptions of solid edema, angioma serpiginosum, hydroa aestivale, and arsenical keratosis. In order to keep up with his many interests, he was an active member of numerous medical and scientific societies including the Sydenham Society. When the Society voted to go out of existence in 1857, Hutchinson began the New Sydenham Society and served as its secretary for many years. It was the New Sydenham Society that asked him to prepare the present work as one of the many treatises in their program of publishing the best works by British and European medical figures. This atlas of forty-nine excellent colored lithographs was prepared to accompany the Descriptive catalogue of the New Sydenham Society's atlas of portraits of diseases of the skin (London, 1869-1875), which is not present here. The first seven plates were taken from Ferdinand von Hebra's (1816-1880) Atlas der Hautkrankheiten (Vienna, 1856-1876) and the remainder were engraved and lithographed by E. Burgess (fl. 1820). The plates cover many of Hutchinson's major interests in dermatology--lupus, various purpuras, syphilis as well as many other more common skin diseases. The atlas also contains rare plates of framboesia and a unique plate depicting a second attack of herpes zoster on the chest with scars of an earlier attack still visible.

See Related Record(s): 2120

Gift of John Martin, M.D.