Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 20.djvu/146

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

wrote a book on the subject, and gradually became a specialist on dermatology. In 1864 he travelled in the East with the Earl of Hopetoun, but returned much enfeebled in health. The experience gained abroad was utilised in several works mentioned below. Settling in Sackville Street, Piccadilly, Fox soon acquired a large practice in dermatology. In 1866 he became physician to the skin department of Charing Cross Hospital, and not long after succeeded Dr. Hillier as physician to the same department of University College Hospital, where he established an excellent system of baths. He proved a good teacher and attracted many foreigners to his clinique. His book on ‘Skin Diseases,’ enlarged and more copiously illustrated in successive editions, made his name widely known, and his ‘Atlas’ finally established his reputation. He did not seek to revolutionise the treatment of his subject, but based his classification on Willan and Bateman's, while insisting on the value of general medical knowledge and insight to the dermatologist. Thus he had worthily gained a position second to few if any specialists, when his life was threatened by aortic disease, with frequent angina. He was taking a brief holiday in Paris, and preparing for the presidency of the Dermatological subsection of the British Medical Association at Cork, when an attack of angina carried him off on 7 June 1879. He was buried at Willesden cemetery, 14 June 1879.

For many years and up to the time of his death Fox was a prominent member of the editorial staff of the ‘Lancet.’ His intense energy was always at work promoting the interests of dermatology as a branch of medical practice. His genial manners and conscientiousness made him very popular with patients. Fox's principal writings are the following: 1. ‘Skin Diseases of Parasitic Origin,’ 1863. 2. ‘Skin Diseases, their Description, Pathology, Diagnosis, and Treatment,’ 1864; 3rd edit., rewritten and enlarged, 1873. 3. ‘The Classification of Skin Diseases,’ 1864. 4. ‘Cholera Prospects,’ 1865. 5. ‘The Action of Fungi in the Production of Disease,’ 1866. 6. ‘Leprosy, Ancient and Modern; with notes taken during recent travel in the East,’ 1866. 7. ‘Eczema, its Nature and Treatment,’ ‘Lettsomian Lectures,’ 1870. 8. ‘Prurigo and Pediculosis,’ 1870. 9. ‘Scheme for obtaining a better knowledge of Endemic Skin Diseases of India’ (with Dr. T. Farquhar); prepared for the India Office, 1872. 10. ‘Key to Skin Diseases,’ 1875. 11. ‘Atlas of Skin Diseases’ (based on Willan's); 4to, with plates, 1875–7. 12. ‘On certain Endemic Skin and other Diseases of India and Hot Climates generally’ (with Dr. T. Farquhar), 1876. 13. ‘Epitome of Skin Diseases’ (with T. Colcott Fox), 1877, 2nd edit. 14. ‘On Ringworm and its Management,’ 1878. Fox edited and revised editions of Tanner's ‘Manual of Clinical Medicine,’ published in 1869 and 1876. He also contributed numerous papers on skin diseases to the medical societies and journals.

[Lancet, Medical Times, and British Medical Journal, 14 June 1879.]

G. T. B.

FOX, WILSON (1831–1887), physician, son of a manufacturer belonging to a well-known quaker family in the west of England, was born at Wellington, Somersetshire, on 2 Nov. 1831. He was educated at Bruce Castle, Tottenham, and University College, London, graduating B.A. in 1850, M.B. in 1854, and M.D. in 1855, at London University. After a year spent as house physician at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, he passed several years in Paris, Vienna, and Berlin, being for two years in the last city a pupil of the great pathologist Virchow. Here he made important observations on the degeneration of the gastric glands (see Fox's ‘Contributions to the Pathology of the Glandular Structures of the Stomach,’ Med.-Chir. Transactions, xli. 1858). In 1859 he married Miss Emily Doyle, and settled at Newcastle-under-Lyme, where he became physician to the North Staffordshire Infirmary. In 1861, supported by Virchow's strong recommendation, he was appointed professor of pathological anatomy at University College, London, and soon afterwards assistant physician to University College Hospital. In 1866 he became fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, and in 1867 full physician to his hospital and Holme professor of clinical medicine. In 1870 he was appointed physician extraordinary to the queen, and was elected F.R.S. He afterwards became physician in ordinary, and frequently attended the queen while in Scotland. He acquired a large practice, and was an active member of the leading medical societies and of the College of Physicians. In April 1887 he was suddenly summoned to the deathbed of his eldest brother at Wellington. Thence he went northwards towards his seat at Rydal Mount for a rest, but was seized with pneumonia on the way and died on 3 May at Preston in Lancashire. He was buried at Taunton on 6 May 1887. A bust in the Shire Hall, Taunton, was unveiled 25 Oct. 1888 (Times, 26 Oct. 1888, p. 8). His first wife died in 1870; by her he left three sons and three daughters. In 1874 he married Evelyn, daughter of Sir Baldwin W. Walker, bart., and