Ferdinand-Jean Darier

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Darier Jean Ferdinand (b. April 26, 1856, Budapest, Hungary; d. 1938, Paris, France) was a French physician, pathologist and dermatologist.

Darier was a brilliant clinician and outstanding pathologist, who studied with Louis-Antoine Ranvier (1835-1922) at the Collège de France. He was the unquestionable leader of the French dermatology. He described several diseases, the most important being Darier's disease, a peculiar figurate erythema which he identified in 1889 as psorodermose folliculaire végétante. Other diseases discovered by him were a follicular keratosis (Darier-White syndrome), acanthosis nigricans, dermatofibrosarcoma (Darier-Ferrand disease), erythema annularis, subcutaneous sarcoidosis (Darier-Roussy sarcoid), and a sign, Darier's sign observed in mastocytosis. From 1909 to 1922, he was the chairman of the clinical department at the Hôpital Saint-Louis. Darier was one of the "big five" of the Paris School of Dermatology, along with Ernest Henri Besnier (1831-1909), Louis-Anne-Jean Brocq (1856-1928), Raymond Jacques Adrien Sabouraud (1864-1938) and Jean Alfred Fournier (1832-1915).

Darier wrote a most important textbook of Dermatology, published in 1909, which was reedited many times in France and translated into Spanish, German and English. He was also the editor an important dermatological encyclopedia: Nouvelle Pratique Dermatologique, which was published in 8 volumes, beginning in 1936.

Besides his medical activities, Darier was the mayor of Longpont-sur-Orge, a small town in the suburban area of Paris, from 1925 to 1935.