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Notable Notes
October 2017

Linking Dermatology, Neurology, and Psychiatry—Interdisciplinary Contributions of Ian Bruce Sneddon

Author Affiliations
  • 1Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts
  • 2Department of Dermatology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
JAMA Dermatol. 2017;153(10):1025. doi:10.1001/jamadermatol.2017.3203

In 1965, British dermatologist Ian Bruce Sneddon (1915-1987) published an observation of 6 patients ranging in age from age 20 to 48 years who experienced both cerebrovascular events and extensive livedo reticularis.1 Sneddon proposed that a previously uncharacterized arteritis might be the cause of this unusual constellation of symptoms. Although the eponymous Sneddon syndrome—describing the rare condition of livedo reticularis associated with history of multiple cerebral infarcts—is perhaps what Sneddon is best remembered by within the field of dermatology, his career is remarkable for many other interdisciplinary contributions linking the fields of neurology, psychiatry, and dermatology.

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