Photographing Dermatology:
The collections of Dr William Thomas Corlett (1854–1948)
Biobraphical Sketch
William Thomas Corlett was born in Orange, Ohio and
educated at Oberlin College from 1870 to 1873. He studied
medicine at the medical department of the University of
Wooster (forerunner of the College of Wooster), graduating
in 1877. After teaching at Wooster for two years he traveled
to London and Paris to study skin diseases and later become
a Fellow of the London Royal College of Physicians. Corlett
returned to Cleveland in 1882 and was appointed lecturer,
then Professor of Skin and Genitourinary Diseases at Wooster
in 1884. It was during this period he began collecting photographs
and glass lantern slides. Three years later, Corlett
resigned to take up the equivalent appointment at the Medical
Department of Western Reserve University, and was appointed
as Professor of Dermatology. He returned to Europe in 1889
and visited medical centers in Vienna and Berlin and reveled
in the rich clinical material London and Paris afforded.
On his return to Cleveland, Corlett’s title at Western Reserve
University was changed to Professor of Dermatology and
Syphilology, a Chair he held until 1914, when he became
Senior Professor, and a decade later, Professor Emeritus.
During his career, Corlett worked at the following Cleveland
hospitals: St Vincent Charity, St Alexis, Lakeside and City
(Metropolitan).
Photograph above: William Thomas Corlett (1854–1948), a snapshot taken in Corlett's “White Office” at his home on corner of Euclid Avenue and 20th Street, Cleveland at the end of the 19th century. Reproduced courtesy of the Stanley A. Ferguson Archives, University Hospitals of Cleveland.