Gustav Simon (physician)

Karl Gustav Theodor Simon was a German physician, pathologist and dermatologist, born in Berlin in 1810 and dead at Zehlendorf in 1857, who is regarded as the founder of dermatopathology. After studying medicine in Berlin and Bonn he practised in Berlin, and in 1842 he discovered and described the mite that lives in human hair follicles. His 1848 book Skin Diseases Illustrated by Anatomical Investigations was the first textbook of dermatopathology, built on microscopic comparison of healthy and diseased skin. That year he became director of the skin and syphilis department at the Charité in Berlin and grew into a leading European specialist in skin and venereal disease. Signs of neurosyphilis appeared in 1853, he lost his post, and he died in a nerve clinic in Berlin.