Book Review: Pantheon der Dermatologie - Pantheon of Dermatology

Löser C, Plewig G

Herausragende historische Persönlichkeiten (Outstanding historical personalities)

"Bowen's disease", "Köbner phenomenon", "Pautrier's microabscess", and "Mohs micrographic surgery"... We usually use these terms in our fields with just little information about the origin and history of the dermatologic terminology. However, who were these people? Where and how did they live? How did they give a name to the disease, syndrome, sign or other feature? In this book, we can easily find and explain the history of dermatology.

This book was designed to acquaint dermatologists, medical historians, and doctors of other specialty with prominent dermatologists and other doctors or scientists of various specialties of the past who contributed to dermatology and whose name is connected with a disease, syndrome, sign or other feature. The book has 1186 pages and includes 200 personalities in alphabetical order. The book was published in German. Two authors, Löser C and Plewig G, compiled the contributions from 158 authors of many different countries. Two hundred personalities over a period of 600 years were described in this book, and no contemporaries were included. Since dermatology as a discipline had its beginning from the 19th century, not only dermatologists but also other personalities from various specialties that had a major impact on dermatology were included. The book consists of the biographies, portraits, photographs or illustrations of the diseases, photographs of memorabilia of personalities. Despite its extensive historic documents, the book describes these features in a reader-friendly format. We can easily seek for a specific personality in the book according to an alphabetical order. And rich illustrative materials also facilitate the understanding.

Overall, the most impressive feature of this book is the rich illustrative material which shows realistic descriptions about the diseases. All of the illustrative materials included in this book are works of great artistic value! These illustrations, photographs, and moulages help us to understand the history of dermatology, although the book is published in German. The English version of the book is expected to be available soon.

This book contains extensive facts of great individuals, their works in dermatology and medical history. The book describes the genesis and facts of various dermatological diseases including not only infectious diseases, such as syphilis, cutaneous tuberculosis, leprosy, herpes viral diseases, viral warts, cutaneous bacterial infections, dermatophytic infestations but also Darier's disease, Ehlers-Danlos disease, Bazex syndrome, Behçet's disease, Bowen's disease, Cockayne syndrome, Gianotti-Crosti syndrome, Cushing syndrome, Dego's disease, Fabry's disease, Hailey-Hailey disease, Peutz-Jehger syndrome, porokeratosis Mibelli, Netherton syndrome, Sjögren's syndrome, etc.

Also, this book gives a good opportunity to rethink of the origin of various dermatological symtoms and signs such as Auspitz sign, Beau's line, Blaschko's line, Gottron's papule, Hutchinson's triad, Köbner's phenomenon, Nikolski sign, Raynaud's phenomenon, Wickham's phenomenon, etc. And the book introduces and describes great dermatologist such as Dr. Civatte, Dr. Henle, Dr. Kogoj, Dr. Langerhans, Dr. Lever, Dr. Merkel, Dr. Munro, Dr. Pautrier, Dr. Pinkus, Dr. Spitz, and Dr. Touton who we all have heard at least once during our studies in dermatopathology. It is worthwhile to notice that Dr. HaeKwan Kung Sun Oh (1878~1963) from Korea was included in this book.

It is expected that the book, "Pantheon der Dermatologie", will deepen the understanding of the history of medical science to dermatologists, other doctors of various specialties, and medical students(Fig. 1, 2).

Fig. 1
The cover picture of the book showing the PANTHEON in Rome in a painting by Giovanni Paolo PANINI (1691~1765) (from 'PANTHEON DER DERMATOLOGIE' with permission).

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Fig. 2
An illustration Tinea favosa from the: Atlas of skin diseases by Louis Adolphus Duhring. Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1876 (from 'PANTHEON DER DERMATOLOGIE' with permission).

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