Symposium on Skin Diseases Common to Man and Animals

"There is but one medicine," observed Sir William Osler. Any dividing line between veterinary and human medicine is artificial. One of the first attempts to make the knowledge of veterinary medicine available to dermatology was the work of Julius Heller published in 1910, under the title Comparative Pathology of the Skin¹; he elaborated on this subject in Jadassohn's Handbook (1930).² There was a long interval until the publication of Kral and Novak's book on veterinary dermatology in 1953.³ Indicative of intense, recent interest in comparative dermatology is the publication in the past four years of three textbooks on this subject, viz, those of Schwartzman and Orkin,⁴ Kral and Schwartzman,⁵ and Rook and Walton.⁶ The last comprises the proceedings of a symposium on comparative physiology and pathology of the skin (Cambridge, England, April 1964). Comparative studies require the teamwork of veterinarian, physician, and frequently zoologist