William James Erasmus Wilson

Sir William James Erasmus Wilson (1809 to 1884), usually called Sir Erasmus Wilson, was an English surgeon and dermatologist. Born in London, he studied at Dartford Grammar School, St Bartholomew's Hospital and the University of Aberdeen and became known early as a skilful surgeon and dissector. Sympathy with the London poor and a suggestion from Thomas Wakley of The Lancet led him to take up skin disease as a special study, and his books A Healthy Skin and the Student's Book of Diseases of the Skin remained textbooks for a long time. He wrote on spas, baths and thermotherapy, helped bring the Victorian Turkish bath into use in Britain and supported public baths and wash-houses as part of sanitary reform. He travelled to study leprosy, goitre and the skin diseases of an ill-nourished peasantry. In 1869 he founded the chair and museum of dermatology at the Royal College of Surgeons, of which he became president in 1881, and he endowed a pathology chair at Aberdeen. He was knighted in 1881, paid for the transport of Cleopatra's Needle to London in 1878, and died at Westgate-on-Sea in 1884.