Two hundred years of dermatology

Two hundred years ago the English physician Robert Willan published the fir st section of his masterwork, On cutaneous diseases. In it he described and demonstrated a new way of examining cutaneous eruptions that enabled physi cians dealing with skin diseases to impose, for the first time, a significa nt degree of order on a field in which disorder had been the rule. The util ity and successful application of the new approach soon attracted the atten tion of a talented cadre of physicians who embraced the study of the skin a nd its problems with enthusiasm, and dermatology as a specialty came into i ts own. The details of the Willan approach and the overwhelming influence i t exerted on the future of the specialty are described in this article. 179 8, the year the section was published, was an annus mirabilis for dermatolo gy, and 1998 can be considered the bicentennial of the birth of the special ty.