Search

A recent monograph on Ancient Egyptian medicine provided the occasion for this article. Apart from highlighting the monograph's shortcomings, this article discusses some crucial problems of research and possible avenues for future investigations in this field. Much additional information can be expected from hitherto unpublished sources. Also the already known source materials permit further insights. Relevant aspects are, among others, the order of recipes and the structure of texts, the relationship of magic to medicine, and the secret names for ingredients. Intensified research on the late period data will further clarify the issue of contacts to Greek medicine and of influences on Coptic medicine.

Phototherapy has a very long, albeit mostly anecdotal history. Real interest in the use of ultraviolet irradiation in the treatment of various diseases started in the 19th century and reached a climax when Niels Finsen received the Nobel Prize in 1903 for his therapeutic results with lupus vulgaris. This marked the start of modern phototherapy. It was used in thermal stations for treatment of tuberculosis, in the treatment of leg ulcers in wartime, and in the treatment of skin diseases. This article reviews the history of a treatment modality that greatly changed modern dermatologic treatment, although it is as old as mankind.

The aim of this review was to explore the procedures used for the treatment of childhood exanthematic diseases during the Byzantine period. The most often reported ones were psoriasis, undefined rashes in parts of the body, ulcerous rashes, blisters, lichens and soaked ulcers. The physicians of the period managed the above problems with appropriate diet and remedies of herbal, veterinary and chemical origin in the form of baths, poultices and concoctions. They largely based their principles on the ancient Greek medical tradition. Their accurate remarks were reflected in their terminology. Many of the terms of this period are still in use, although current treatment modalities are quite different from the Byzantine remedies.

Wax moulages are valuable witnesses of the beginning of dermatology as an independent speciality. In addition, they document changes in the allocation of clinical pictures to certain conditions. This has been due to the knowledge about new etiologies of dermatologic disorders, which have been steadily increasing since the beginning of the 20th Century. Furthermore changes in the frequency of certain diseases can be recognized to some extent. The still existing moulages of the Department of Dermatology and Venereology of Rostock offer some interesting examples.

George Cheyne Shattuck's 1808 dissertation on structure and function of the skin is one of the earliest American writings on the topic of skin diseases. Although this essay contributed no important new observations, it does provide insight into the attitudes of American physicians in the post-Revolutionary War period toward skin diseases, their classification, and their management.

The results of a series of studies on total and selective sleep deprivation in the rat are integrated and discussed. These studies showed that total sleep deprivation, paradoxical sleep deprivation, and disruption and/or deprivation of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep produced a reliable syndrome that included death, debilitated appearance, skin lesions, increased food intake, weight loss, increased energy expenditure, decreased body temperature during the late stages of deprivation, increased plasma norepinephrine, and decreased plasma thyroxine. The significance of this syndrome for the function of sleep is not entirely clear, but several changes suggested that sleep may be necessary for effective thermoregulation.

From the diary of the shooting of La Belle et la Bête, the author studies the skin disease from which Jean Cocteau had to suffer, and the various treatments which were proposed to him.

In view of the description of Medical citations; Vedic literature, Buddhist literature, Jain literature, Mahabharat, Ramayan etc. have also got significant importance. Like other diseases, the description regarding Kushtha (different skin disorders) is also available in all these treatises. These are akin to the description available in Ayurveda. From the above, it is apparent that description of different diseases mentioned in Ayurveda are also available in religious literatures.

Herbert Brown was Consultant Dermatologist to the Victoria Infirmary, Glasgow during the first half of the 20th Century. He was a keen amateur photographer, and his large archive of photographs illustrates comprehensively the work of a clinical dermatologist in that era.

A case report of hyperkeratosis lenticularis perstans (Flegel) is presented. The disease is characterized clinically, histologically and with electron microscope. The evolution of the disease since Flegel described it 40 years ago is considered, with emphasis on etiology, pathogenesis and unanswered questions.

The "Dutch DNA Repair Group" was established about 35 years ago. In this brief historical review some of the crucial decisions are described that have contributed to the relative success of the research of this group. The emphasis of the work of this group has been for many years on the genetic analysis of nucleotide excision repair (NER) and genetic diseases based on defects in this repair process: xeroderma pigmentosum (XP), Cockayne syndrome and trichothiodystrophy.

San Isidoro of Sevilla (562-636) was a learned Spaniard of the early Middle Ages. His principal work, the Etymologies, is an encyclopedic treatise which analyzes the origin and meaning of about 5,500 terms corresponding to the different knowledge of his era. Liber IV of the Etymologies is dedicated to Medicine, and one of his chapters, titled De morbis qui in superficie corporis videntur (The diseases that are seen on the skin surface), studies 32 terms corresponding to skin diseases, so that this chapter represents the first text dedicated specifically to Dermatology in Europe. At the same time, according to the general plan of the work that includes each term with its origin and its definition, Liber IV (De Medicina) would be the oldest medical terminology dictionary known.

This study deals with skin diseases described in the earliest compiled or translated Turkish medical manuscripts of the 14th and 15th centuries in Anatolia. The manuscripts studied are: Müntehab-i Sifa, Edviye-i Müfrede, Tervihü'l-Ervah, Yadigâr, Cerrahiyyetü'l-Haniyye, Kamilü's-Sinaatü't-Tibbiye Tercü-mesi, Kitab-i Müntehab-i fi't-Tibb, Haza'inü's-Sa'adat, Akrabadin Tercümesi, Mücerrebname, Müfredât-i Ibn-i Baytar Tercümesi, Tuhfe-i Mübarizi and Tuhfe-i Muradi. The skin diseases known at that time are studied under the following topics: Cüderi (Ciçek, Variola, Small-pox); Hasbe (Kizamik, Rubeola, Measles); Cüzzam (Lepra, Leprosy, Hansen's disease); Demregü (Temriye, Dermatophtosis, Tinea corporis); Behak (There are two types: the white and the black; the black is Addison's disease); Baras (Ala, Vitilio); Nemle (Isirga, Makül); Ateş paresi (Nar-i farisi, frunculosis); Cemre (Kara kabarcik, Sirpençe, Karbonkül, Carbuncle); Caversiye (Kabarcik hastaliği, blisters disease); Sivilceler (Various types of pimples; Humre: Yilancik, Erizipel, Erysipelas, St. Anthony's fire; Başbert: Ciban, Fronkül, Boil, Fruncle; Dümmel: Kan çibani, Abse, Abscess); Abile (Kabarcik, Bule); Seretan (Kanser, Cancer); Hanazir (Siraca, Scrofuloderma); Akile (Yinürbaş, Gangren); Kurdeşen (Urtiker, Urticeria); Uyuz (Gale, Scabies); Giciyik (Kaşinti, Pruritus); Sa'fe (Konak, Seboreik dermatit, Scurf; Kel (Alopesi, Favus); Evram (Sişler, Urlar, Tumours); Yara (Karha, Cerahat, Wound). The terminology and symptoms of these diseases are studied and tried to find their equivalents of today. The causes and the treatment of the skin diseases known then are presented. The second part of Tokaç's article continues to deal with the etiology, symptoms and treatment of dermatological diseases.

This article analyzes a medieval text known as The Secrets of Hippocrates. Neither secret (because of its wide circulation in manuscript and print) nor by Hippocrates, the work offered readers a means of offering a prognosis of impending death based on observable signs on the skin. Although the aphorisms that make up the text make little sense in a modern medical understanding, the Secrets of Hippocrates fits well within three medieval traditions: the tradition of secrets literature, the medieval medical tradition, and the tradition of medieval Christian views about the body. First, like other books of secrets, a genre to whose conventions the text closely adheres, the Secrets of Hippocrates offered a shortcut to socially useful knowledge: the ability to offer an accurate medical prognosis. Second, the treatise corresponded to the medieval physician's concern for the so-called nonnaturals, such as diet and exercise. Third, it fit with a medieval Christian notion that sickness and sin were related, as were sin and ugliness. Just as a leper's deformities were a window to his sinful soul, so skin pathologies could clue a medieval physician to the lethal disease hidden inside the body.

Gunpowder may no longer be a recommended treatment for warts, but most of the therapies used in 1950 are still used to some extent now. The problems, now as then, are the multiplicity of treatment options and the lack of a cure. Several treatments popular in the past decade are discussed.

The role dermatologists have played throughout the history of laser development is an extremely vital one. The initial interests of Dr. Leon Goldman stimulated many other individual dermatologists to further his work and develop surgical techniques using newer laser systems to provide more effective treatment for patients with a variety of skin diseases. The long list of current cutaneous laser applications developed by dermatologists makes it virtually certain that members of our specialty will continue to play a significant future role in the refinement of laser instrumentation and operative techniques that are inevitable to occur.

Thomas Bateman was a physician to the Carey Street Public Dispensary with Robert Willan in the first decade of the nineteenth century when the latter was developing the classification that would act as a foundation for modern dermatology. Following Willan's death with his work still incomplete, Bateman published a book, as an abstract of Willan's full concept, which was probably the most influential dermatology text of the nineteenth century. This was the first classification of dermatology that precisely defined the terms used and fitted individual diseases into a single class, rather than considering different stages of the same disease as maladies that belonged in different classes. This was the first attempt to link treatment to the disease process rather than to the clinical appearances and thus represents the origin of modern scientific clinical dermatology.

This study deals with skin diseases described in the earliest compiled or translated Turkish medical manuscripts of the 14th and 15th centuries in Anatolia. The manuscripts studied are: Müntehab-i Sifa, Edviye-i Müfrede, Tervihü'l-Ervah, Yadigâr, Cerrahiyyetü'l-Haniyye, Kamilü's-Sinaatü't-Tibbiye Tercü-mesi, Kitab-i Müntehab-i fi't-Tibb, Haza'inü's-Sa'adat, Akrabadin Tercümesi, Mücerrebname, Müfredât-i Ibn-i Baytar Tercümesi, Tuhfe-i Mübarizi, Tuhfe-i Muradi. The skin diseases known at that time are studied under the following topics: Cüderi (Ciçek, Variola, Small-pox); Hasbe (Kizamik, Rubeola, Measles); Cüzzam (Lepra, Leprosy, Hansen's disease); Demregü (Temriye, Dermatophtosis, Tinea corporis); Behak (There are two types: the white and the black; the black is Addison's disease); Baras (Ala, Vitilio); Nemle (Isirga, Makül); Ateş paresi (Nar-l farisi, frunculosis); Cemre (Kara kabarcik, Sirpençe, Karbonkül, Carbuncle); Caversiye (Kabarcik hastaliği, blisters disease); Sivilceler (Various types of pimples; Humre: Yilancik, Erizipel, Erysipelas, St. Anthony's fire; Başbert: Ciban, Fronkül, Boil, Fruncle; Dümmel: Kan çibani, Abse, Abscess); Abile (Kabarcik, Bule); Seretan (kanser, Cancer); Hanazir (Siraca, Scrofuloderma); Akile (Yinürbaş, Gangren); Kurdeşen (Urtiker, Urticeria); Uyuz (Gale, Scabies); Giciyik (Kaşinti, Pruritus); Sa'fe (Konak, Seboreik dermatit, Scurf); Kel (Alopesi, Favus); Evram (Sişler, Urlar, Tumours); Yara (Karha, Cerahat, Wound). The terminology and symptoms of these diseases are studied and tried to find their equivalents of today. The causes and the treatment of the skin diseases known then are presented.

This study deals with skin diseases described in the earliest compiled or translated Turkish medical manuscripts of the 14th and 15th centuries in Anatolia. The manuscripts studies are: Müntehab-i Sifa, Edviye-i Müfrede, Tervihü'l-Ervah, Yadigâr, Cerrahiyyetü'l-Haniyye, Kamilü's-Sinaatü't-Tibbiye Tercü-mesi, Kitab-i Müntehab-i fi't-Tibb, Haza'inü's-Sa'adat, Akrabadin Tercümesi, Mücerrebname, Müfredât-Ibn-i Baytar Tercümesi, Tuhfe-i Mübarizi, Tuhfe-i Muradi. The skin disease know at that time are studied under the following topics: Cüderi (Ciçek, Variola, Small-pox); Hasbe (Kizamik, Rubeola, Measles); Cüzzam (Lepra, Leprosy, Hansen's disease); Demregü (Temriye, Dermatophtosis, Tinea coproris); Behak (There are two types: the white and the black; the black is Addison's disease ); Baras (Ala, Vitilio); Nemle (Isirga, Makül); Ateş paresi (Nar-i farisi, frunculosis); Cemre (Kara kabarcik, Sirpenşe, Karbonkül, Carbuncle); Caversiye (Kabarcik hastaliği, blisters disease); Sivilceler (Various types of pimples; Humre: Yilancik, Erizipel, Erysipelas, St. Anthony's fire; Başbert: Ciban, Fronkül, Boil, Fruncle; Dümmel: Kan çibani, Abse, Abscess); Abile (Kabarcik, Bule); Seretan (Kanser, Cancer); Hanaziz (Siraca, Scrofuloderma); Akile (Yinürbaş, Gangren); Kurdeşen (Urtiker, Urticeria); Uyuz (Gale, Scabies); Giciyik (Kaşinti, Prutitus); Sa'fe (Konak, Seboreik dermatit, Scurf); Kel (Aloposi, Favus); Evram (Sişler, Urlar, Tumours); Yara (Karha, Cerahat, Wound). The terminology and symptoms of these diseases are studied and tired to find their equivalents of today. The causes and the treatment of the skin diseases known then are presented.

In December 1899, Professor Caesar Boeck (1845-1917) in Kristiania (now Oslo) published his pioneering article on "Multiple benign sarkoid of the skin". At the time, Boeck's sarcoid was a dermatological curiosity, but in his latest work in 1916, Boeck recognised the generalised character of the disease. Today, 100 years later, sarcoidosis is still an enigmatic disease. Caesar Boeck was a hard-working clinician and histologist, the founder of modern dermatovenerology in Norway. This article gives an account of Caesar Boeck's family background, his scientific career and his personality.