Organizing American dermatology and the founding of the American Academy of Dermatology

Abstract

Born in the miasmatic mists of antiquity, growing up through centuries of complexity, and maturing in Europe, dermatology was brought to America in the early nineteenth century, and by the 1900s it became a vital part of the world's medical community. Fifty years ago American dermatologists formed an organization to bind the profession together through education and communication, the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD). Tyronic American dermatology began with Henry Bulkley in 1836/ who became the first American physician to study dermatology at the H6pital Saint-Louis in Paris before his return to New York to direct the Broome Street Infirmary for Diseases of the Skin. 2 He was the first to teach and practice dermatology in America? In 1869 with three colleagues, Bulkley founded and became President of the New York Dermatology Society, the first society dedicated to the study of skin diseases in the world? Dermatology was burgeoning in the United States, each year seemed to spawn new American dermatologic centers and masters and to see the publication of American treatises and textbooks about skin diseases, 5 but still most American dermatologists studied in Vienna, London, or Paris. In 1871 James White 6 was the first American professor of dermatology, an honor awarded by the prestigious Harvard Medical School. Henry Piffard 7 was the first to give postgraduate lectures in dermatology in 1875 at the New York University Medical College, and the opening of the New York Skin and Cancer Hospital in 1882, 3 and the development of formal dermatologic departments at medical centers in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston gave Americans the chance for dermatologic study at home. However, most training included European tutorials. Dermatology was a stepchild to organized medicine in the United States. Opportunities and funding for research were meager. Despite these impediments, dermatology forged ahead in the United States during the early twentieth century. The late 1920s brought changes to American medicine) Fleeing the Nazis and the instability of prewar Europe, thousands of scientists emigrated to the United States. Old World training, didacticism, skills, and energy, mixed with American ideals, tenacity, pragmatism, and occasional pugnation, began a renaissance in dermatology. Residency programs and American-trained dermatologists vaulted in quantity and quality. By early 1937 two national organizations represented dermatologists, the American Dermatological Association (ADA) and the American Medical Association (AMA). In 1876 six dermatologists sent letters proposing a national dermatologic society, and 16 men attended the organizational meeting at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia of the ADA. Twenty-nine of the approximately 50 dermatologists in America at that time joined the ADA. 9 The AMA was founded in 1847, and its Section on Dermatology and Syphilology was established in 1887 in Chicago. For decades after its beginning, the Section on Dermatology was a political arena, whose meetings were not attended by many of the extant dermatologic leaders and whose minutes were not even recorded. '~ In 1932 the ADA and the Section of Dermatology and Syphilology of the AMA cosponsored the formation of the American Board of Dermatology.