George Henry Fox

Born in Ballston Spa, New York, in 1846, he earned his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania and then continued his studies in Berlin, London, Paris, and Vienna. He later built his career in New York and became a professor of dermatology at several medical schools, including Columbia University and the New York Post-Graduate Medical School and Hospital.

He is especially remembered for bringing photography into dermatology at a time when clear visual records were still rare. Books such as Photographic Illustrations of Skin Diseases helped doctors and students learn to recognize conditions from lifelike images, and his name is also linked with Fox-Fordyce disease. He was among the founders of the American Dermatological Association.

Beyond medicine, he also served in the Civil War when he was young and later wrote reminiscences about his life and work. His career stretched across decades of major change in medical teaching, and he is still remembered as one of the early figures who gave dermatology a stronger visual and clinical foundation.