Belfast native James Clarke White is widely recognized as the first full professor of dermatology in the United States and a pioneer for the field of dermatology. Born in July 1833, he entered Harvard University at the age of 16 and entered the field of medicine during his senior year at Harvard.

He wrote in his diary: “There came to me this afternoon in church the sudden conviction that I would choose medicine as my life work.”

Despite electing to study medicine there was little opportunity, as noted in the American Journal of Contact Dermatitis, in the U.S. for the study of medicine when White graduated in 1853.

“The usual curriculum consisted of two or three courses of lectures at a college, usually followed by a preceptorship with a local practicing physician,” the 1994 journal article reported. “Those who could afford it completed their medical education in Europe by studying at one of the prestigious universities in Germany, France, or England.”

Following his graduation, White attended the Tremont Medical School in Boston and received clinical instruction at the Massachusetts General Hospital, where he interned.

After his internship at MGH, White attended the University of Vienna and studied under, among others, famed dermatologist Ferdinand von Hebra, while also pursuing an interest in botany and chemistry that, per the journal article, “placed him in good stead for his later studies of environmental dermatoses.”

White became an instructor of chemistry at his alma mater in 1858, later being promoted to adjunct professor in 1866.

“He was a methodical and very industrious man, well read generally, a connoisseur in food, wine, and china,” wrote F. C. Shattuck in a 1917 Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences journal article. “Rarely sleeping after six, he read for an hour before rising. Every summer he made a list of birds seen, and, during a visit to the writer in the Adirondacks of all the berry bearing plants he encountered in the woods.”

White became the inaugural chairman of a dermatology department in the U.S. in 1871 at Harvard and served as a professor.

“It required great courage in those days to specialize in dermatology; indeed, in anything except ophthalmology,” Shattauck wrote. “But courage is a quality of which Dr. White had, at least, his share, and his integrity of character was so well known that all under stood there was no sham in his adoption of a specialty.”

During his time practicing, White became a founding member and first president of the American Dermatological Association and published several pieces of medical literature. White, according to Shattuck, also made appearances during court cases as a medico-legal expert.

“He made it a rule to appear only for the government, a practice which, in combination with his obvious sincerity and competence, enhanced respect for the impartiality of his evidence,” Shattuck noted.

During his time at Harvard, White “built the unit at Massachusetts General Hospital into one of the greatest in the nation, if not the greatest,” according to the AJCD article.