Robert Willan

Robert Willan (born 12 November, 1757 near Sedbergh, Yorkshire; died 7 April, 1812, Madeira) is the founder of dermatology as a medical specialty. He received his MD in Edinburgh in 1780 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1809. He was educated at Sedbergh School.

From 1781 Willan practised medicine in Darlington and then moved to London in 1783 as physician to the new Carey Street Public Dispensary, where he remained until 1803 teaching alongside Thomas Bateman. Willan and Bateman working together provided the world's first attempt to classify skin diseases from an anatomical standpoint.

In 1790 Willan received the Fothergillian Medal from the Medical Society of London for his classification of skin diseases. In the same year he published an account entitled "A Remarkable Case of Abstinence", which detailed the case of a young Englishman who died in 1786 after fasting for 78 days - one of the earliest accounts of eating disorders in males.

In 1798 Willan described the occupational disease psoriasis diffusa, which affects the hands and arms of bakers, and in 1799 first described the exanthematous rash of childhood known as erythema infectiosum.

Willan's 1808 book, On Cutaneous Diseases is a landmark in the history of dermatology and in medical illustration and contains the first use of the word "lupus" to describe cutaneous tuberculosis.