Ernest Henri Besnier

Ernest Henri Besnier (April 21, 1831 - May 15, 1909) was a French dermatologist and medicinal director of the Hôpital St. Louis in Paris. He introduced histopathology and parasitology to the clinic, and originated the term biopsy for tissue samples. He was the first to describe the chronic skin changes of sarcoidosis, and gave it the name lupus pernio. He founded the medical journal Annales de dermatologie et de syphiligraphie with Pierre Adolphe Adrien Doyon. Besnier is credited with performing comparative studies between the French and Viennese approaches to dermatological medicine, and in 1881 with Doyon, he translated Moritz Kaposi's famous book on skin diseases from German into French (Leçons sur les maladies de la peau).

The eponymous Besnier's prurigo is named after a type of atopic dermatitis that he described.