Dermatology and history in Wales (Cymru)*

Abstract

SUMMARY The development of dermatology in Wales (Cymru) is traced against a short history of the independent kingdom which became the Principality. Skin diseases were treated by the earliest Cymry, Celtic druids, Celto‐Christian priests, Anglo‐Saxon leeches and court physicians, and later by medieval university graduates and unskilled village herbalists and, when industrialization came, by ‘truck doctors’ and general practitioners. The early dermatologists are described. Traditional holy wells and folk medicine form connecting links.