Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 2004

WILLIAM TILBURY FOX (1836-1879) Skin diseases. Henry Renshaw 1869 2nd ed. viii, 472 pp., illus. 12.7 cm.

One of England's finest dermatologists, Fox studied medicine at University College in London where he graduated in 1857. He began general practice at Bayswater in 1859 but found obstetrics more to his liking and soon became physician-accoucheur to the Farringdon General Dispensary. He became interested in skin diseases while studying fungal infections of the skin and hair and changed his specialty to dermatology. He was lecturer on diseases of the skin at Charing Cross Hospital and also served as physician to the skin department of University College Hospital. Fox's promising career was ended by heart disease at an early age. In 1864 Fox was the first to definitively describe impetigo contagiosa and show that it was contagious. He was also the first to clearly describe and delineate dysidrosis in 1873. Fox made important studies of parasitic skin diseases and contributed original descriptions of epidermolysis bullosa in 1879 and dermatitis herpetiformis in 1880. The present work, Fox's most important, was first issued at London in 1864 and became the standard work on the subject. In this second edition, Fox has added material from his course of lectures at Charing Cross Hospital and given more comprehensive accounts of common skin diseases for the benefit of students. Being aware that many graduates enter the foreign service, Fox also included descriptions of many tropical skin diseases as well as a special formulary containing 200 selected remedies.