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Jean-Louis-Marc Alibert (May 2, 1768 – November 4, 1837) was a French dermatologist born in Villefranche-de-Rouergue, Aveyron. He was a pioneer of French dermatology.

Originally planning to enter the priesthood, Alibert did not begin studying medicine until he was 26 years old. As a medical student in Paris, he studied with renowned physicians that included Pierre-Joseph Desault (1744–1795), Marie Francois Xavier Bichat (1771–1802) and Philippe Pinel (1745–1826). In 1801 he was appointed médecin adjoint to the Hôpital Saint-Louis (then known as the Hospice du Nord), where he administered to patients with syphilis, leprosy and other skin disorders. Following the Restoration of the French monarchy, Alibert became a personal physician to Louis XVIII. Later he was a personal physician to Charles X, and was awarded with the title of "baron". Being that there was no chair of dermatology in Paris, Alibert was appointed professor of materia medica and therapeutics in 1823.

Alibert believed that when diagnosing skin disorders several criteria needed to be used, and tried to introduce a classification system for diseases that was similar to the method Bernard and Antoine Laurent de Jussieu used in botany. Alibert first classified dermatological disorders according to outer appearance, then he divided them into what he called families, genera and species. This system of classification was represented pictorially by Alibert as the "Tree of Dermatoses".

Alibert was a prodiguous writer, his best known work being the beautifully illustrated Descriptions des maladies de la peau. A type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, known as mycosis fungoides was formerly known as "Alibert-Bazin syndrome", and barber's itch was once referred to as "Alibert's mentagra".

In 1806, a French physician, Jean Louis Alibert, was the first to describe a patient with mycosis fungoides.^[1]

Contents 1 See also 2 Notable publications 3 References 4 External links

[edit] See also

• List of dermatologists

[edit] Notable publications

• Dissertation sur les fièvres pernicieuses ou ataxiques intermittentes, Doctoral thesis (1799)
• Alibert JLM (1806) (in French). Descriptions des maladies de la peau observées a l’Hôpital Saint-Louis, et exposition des meilleures méthodes suivies pour leur traitement. Paris: Barrois l’ainé. p. 286. http://infohawk.uiowa.edu/F?func=direct&doc_number=000636854&l_base=uiowa. 
• Alibert JLM (1826/1827) (in French). Physiologie des passions, ou, Nouvelle doctrine des sentimens moraux (2e éd. rév., corr. et augm. ed.). Paris: Béchet jeune. 
• Alibert JLM (1835) (in French). Monographie des dermatoses (2nd ed.). Paris: Germer Balliere. 

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Jean-Louis-Marc Alibert @ Who Named It, including bibliography of written works.
• French Society for the History of Dermatology "Paris choosing a dermatological hero for the millennium" by Daniel Wallach
• "Baron Jean-Louis ALIBERT 1768 - 1837 Médecin, dermatologue français" Portraites de Medecins