Johannes Fabry

Johannes Fabry (1860 to 1930) was a German dermatologist who spent most of his working life in Dortmund. Born in Jülich into a merchant family, he studied medicine in Bern and Berlin; after losing a leg in a sporting accident while still a student he turned his attention to dermatology. He trained at the skin and venereal disease clinic in Bonn under Joseph Doutrelepont and later in Zürich, took his doctorate in Bonn in 1885, and settled in Dortmund in 1889. In 1900 he founded the skin clinic at the Louisen Hospital, which he directed until 1927, and he was named a professor in 1919. He worked across nearly the whole of dermatology. In 1898 he gave one of the first descriptions of the inherited disorder now called Fabry disease, at about the same time as William Anderson, and he also devised a spirit preparation for treating acne that carries his name.