Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/363

NAME DUHRING 341 DUHRING were both of foreign birth, the former of Mecklenburg, Germany, and the latter of St. Gall, Switzerland, coming to this country in 1818. His educational training was obtained in private schools in Philadelphia and in the academic department of the University of Pennsylvania. In October, 1863, he entered the Medical Department of the University and spent three years in medical studies, studying under the preceptorship of Dr. William Hunt and Dr. J. J. Levick and graduating March 14, 1867; becoming, immediately after his grad- uation, a resident physician in the Philadelphia (Blockley) Hospital, where he remained for fifteen months. In July, 1868, a few weeks after his term as interne had expired, he left for Europe, where, during a period of two years, he attended the lectures and demonstrations of the most famous pathologists, dermatologists, and sphilographers in Berlin, Vienna, Paris, and London, in the General Hospital of Vien- na, being under the tutelage of Hebra, when that brilliant teacher and clinician was at the zenith of his fame. Thus equipped. Dr. Duhr- ing began the practice of his specialty in Phila- delphia in 1870, and immediately organized and opened the "Dispensary for Skin Diseases," and remained in active charge till 1880, and as consultant from that time till 1890. In 1871 Dr. Duhring was elected lecturer on skin diseases in the University of Pennsylvania; this lecture- ship was changed in 1876 to a clinical pro- fessorship, and in 1890 to a full professorship, with a seat in the faculty. Dr. Duhring be- coming also a member of its council. In 1870- 1871, Dr. Duhring, with the help of Dr. F. F. Maury, started under conjoint editorship. The Photographic Revieiv of Medicine and Surgery, a monthly journal, a publication which was continued two years ; in all, forty-eight rare and interesting cases, with descriptive notes, were photographically presented, some of which appeared later, and a few of which still continue to appear, as illustrations in text- books. In 1876 a department for diseases of the skin was inaugurated at the Philadelphia (Blockley) Hospital, and Dr. Duhring was made the visiting dermatologist, continuing in sole charge till 1887, when the service, at his suggestion, was divided. His "Atlas of Skin Diseases" appeared in 1876; it was the work of a master, and in the practical selection of subjects, and in its life-like reproductions, has not been surpased to the present day. Scarcely had the first few parts of the Atlas appeared when his "Practical Treatise on Skin Diseases" was announced (1877). It was the first .American text-book on this subject, and the most scholarly in the English language. As with the Atlas, this treatise was at once accorded a warm and flattering reception, not only in America, but in England and on the Continent of Europe; a second and third edition, somewhat increased in size, soon followed, and the profession of France, Italy and Russia did him the honor of translating and publishing this work in their respective languages ; it has also furnished much of the basic material for the publication of a small book in the Chinese language. His fellow dermatological workers of this, as well as other countries, soon were according him the American leadership in this branch, which as time went on, became more and more secure. Dr. Duhring was also a frequent contributor to current medical literature, both as to papers of a clinical and practical type and those of a distinctly analytic and scientific character; but the papers — an almost continuous and elabor- ated series, about eighteen in all, published between 1884 and 1891 — which, with his Treatise and Atlas publications, gave him an important and recognized position as one of the leading dermatological thinkers of the world, were those concerning the disease, or disease group, to which he gave the name of "dermatitis herpetiformis," a disease since also known everywhere as "Duhring's disease." His contention aroused at first considerable op- position, but this gradually disappeared, and in the main his views were finally generally accepted and obtain at the present day. In ad- dition to his many other writings, Dr. Duhring was a contributor to several of the encyclo- pedic publications of comparatively recent years ; the most important and most extensive was the chapter on skin diseases, consisting of 150 pages, in "Pepper's System of Medicine." While an occasional contributor and partici- pant — imore especially in his early professional life — at the meetings of the various medical societies to which he belonged, such as the Philadelphia County Medical Society, the Phil- adelphia Pathological Society, the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, and the Penn- sylvania State Medical Society, it was particu- larly in the American Dermatological Associa- tion, of which he was one of the founders and twice its president, that his medical activ- ities were displayed. When he retired from active participation in this Association, he was elected to honorary membership; he was also interested in the Section on Dermatology of the .'merican Medical Association. The ap- preciative feeling of his foreign colleagues for his work and attainments was reflected in his