WHAT WAS DERMATOLOGY LIKE THEN?

The modern physician, with his copy of Future Shock on one side of the desk and a large pile of his latest specialty journals on the other, bemoans his inability to keej) abreast of all of the most recent advances in his field. He longs for those few quiet moments to "catcli tip," but as he turns the last page on the last journal, puts on his hat and coat and prepares to fight the evening's traffic, he spies a large rectangular mass lying on his secretary's desk. Unable to fight temptation, he opens his briefcase and once again puts off that special task he has been waiting to do. Perhaps it will come as a comfort for the weary dermatologist to learn that even a centnry ago, physicians expeiienced similar qtialms, being confronted with an overwhelming amount of new material and an unbelieving sense of inadecpiacy. lOespite this, the idea of specialization was quite foreign to most medical peojile of the time. T. McCall Anderson (1836-1908), professor of clinical medicine at the University of Glasgow, called attention to such rapid developments in dennatology. Our specialty had progressed from an appendage to the chest ward to a medical discipline worthy of note. In fact, Anderson already had developed dermatology seivices of liis own at the Royal Dispensary, as well as at the Glasgow Skin Dispensary.