Unna, Paul Gerson

German physician and dermatologist; born at Hamburg Sept. 8, 1850; son of Moritz Adolph Unna; educated at the universities of Heidelberg, Leipsic, and Strasburg (M.D. 1875). He was severely wounded in the Franco-Prussian war, in which he served as a private. After graduation he became assistant to Waldeyer at Strasburg, and in the following year he returned to Hamburg and established a practise. During 1877 he was assistant at the general hospital in that city. In 1881 he became interested in dermatology, and opened a private hospital for skin-diseases; and in 1884 he gave up his general practise and founded the well-known hospital for skin-diseases at Einisbüttel near Hamburg. This he enlarged in 1887 by adding a laboratory, which soon became the center for dermatological researches in Germany.

Unna is an untiring worker; he has written over one hundred essays in all fields of medicine and many standard works on his specialty. In 1882 he founded the semimonthly "Monatshefte für Praktische Dermatologie." He is collaborator for dermatology on Eulenburg's "Realencyklopädie der Gesammten Heilkunde"; on Baumgarten's "Jahresbericht über die Fortschritte in der Lehre von den Pathogenen Mikroorganismen"; and on Virchow-Hirsch's "Jahresbericht über die Fortschritte und Leistungen in der Medizin."

Among Unna's publications may be mentioned: "Kuno Fischer und das Gewissen," in "Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie und Sprach wissenschaft," 1875, ix.; "Anatomie der Haut," in Ziemssen's "Handbuch der Allgemeinen Therapie," 1882; "Histopathologie der Haut," in supplement to Orth's "Spezielle Pathologie," 1894, and "Allgemeine Therapie der Haut," 1898. All three are standard works. He publishes the "Histologischer Atlas zur Pathologie der Haut," and, together with Morris, Besnier, and Duhring, the "Internationaler Atlas Seltener Hautkrankheiten."

Bibliography:

  * Hirsch, Biog. Lex.;
  * Pagel, Biog. Lex.



S. F. T. H.