FOUNDER
HENRY DAGGETT BULKLEY, son of John and Amelia Bulkley, was born in New Haven, Conn., Apr. 20, 1803. His mother was a daughter of Judge Henry Daggett, of New Haven. He was engaged in mercantile pursuits in N. Y. city for six or seven years after graduation, and then returned here to study medicine under Dr. Knight. He received the degree of M.D. in 1830, and soon after went to Europe for further advantages, and spent some time in the hospitals of Paris studying cutaneous diseases. He began practice in N. Y. city in Nov., 1832, and remained in extensive practice until his decease.
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He was especially an authority in cutaneous medicine, and one of the first in the country to lecture on these disorders, and the first to establish a dispensary in N. Y city for their treatment. Besides his connection with several other dispensaries, he was appointed in 1848 as an attending physician to the N.Y. Hospital, which position he held until his death. He occupied at different times the presidential
chairs of the N. Y. Academy of Medicine, and the N.Y. County Medical Society. In 1846 and in 1852, he published editions of Cazenave and Schedel on Diseases of the Skin, and in 1851 edited Gregory on Eruptive Fevers.
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With all of his activities – conducting a full time practice, lecturing, editing, and writing – Bulkley never lost sight of his primary concern: the emergence and development of Dermatology in America. Thus, on May 18, 1869, Bulkley hosted, in his home at 42 East 22nd Street, the founding meeting of the first dermatological society in the world – the New York Dermatological Society. Bulkley served as preliminary chairman of the group and later as its first president. Under his guidance, the society became the progenitor of other such groups – including the American Dermatological Association founded in 1876 – and spearheaded the growth and recognition of dermatology in America.