Henry Radcliffe Crocker

Crocker was born in 1846 in Hove, Sussex to Henry and Maria (née Walters) Crocker.[1] His father was a chemist, a career that Crocker at first sought to take up. At 16, he left his private school in Brighton to take up an apprenticeship with a general practitioner in Silverdale, Staffordshire. In 1870 he became a student at University College Hospital medical school in London. He worked part-time as a drug dispenser in Sloane Street. As an undergraduate student, Crocker won gold medals in materia medica, clinical medicine and forensic medicine, as well as a university scholarship. Crocker was generally known by his middle name, Radcliffe, and throughout his career this was sometimes mistaken as the first part of his surname.[1]

After receiving his Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS) qualification, Bachelor of Science degree and then in 1875 his MD, Crocker obtained a position as resident obstetric physician and physician's assistant at University College Hospital. He then held posts at the Brompton Hospital for Consumption and Diseases of the Chest and Charing Cross Hospital before returning to University College Hospital as resident medical officer. He worked under dermatologist William Tilbury Fox, and began to develop his own dermatological career as assistant medical officer in the hospital's dermatology department. At this time, the practice of specialising in medicine was somewhat frowned upon in the United Kingdom (although more popular in continental Europe), but Tilbury Fox and Crocker were credited with bringing some structure to the field of dermatology.[1]

From 1877, Crocker was a member (and later a fellow) of the Royal College of Physicians. Following the death of Tilbury Fox in 1879, Crocker succeeded him as physician in the department of dermatology at University College Hospital.[2] In this position, Crocker was able to devote himself to the study of the skin and its diseases. Although a specialist, in his clinical work, he emphasised the value of treating the whole patient.[1][2] His research concentrated on the epidemiology of skin diseases and histology, noting the importance of microscopic inspection of skin cells. During his career, he was the first to describe or name diseases such as granuloma annulare and erythema elevatum diutinum.[1]

In 1888, Crocker published Diseases of the Skin: their Description, Pathology, Diagnosis and Treatment, a textbook that helped to establish him as a leading figure in dermatology.[3]

Crocker married Constance Mary Fussell on 3 April 1880. She was the daughter of Edward Francis Fussell, a medical officer and doctor at Sussex County Hospital. They had no children.

He died on 22 August 1909, aged 63, while on holiday in Engelberg, a village in Switzerland.[2] The cause of death was heart failure.[1]

• Crocker, Henry Radcliffe (1888), Diseases of the Skin: their Description, Pathology, Diagnosis and Treatment, London: H. K. Lewis, OCLC 11820909