Jay Frank Schamberg

Jay Frank Schamberg graduated from medical school at the University of Pennsylvania in 1892. He interned at the university hospital and was drawn into dermatology by Louis Adolphus Duhring (1845-1913), Henry Weightman Stelwagon (1853-1919), and other important personalities in this discipline. He then spent a year abroad, visiting Vienna, Paris, Berlin, and London for further education. Returning to his native city he became professor of dermatology at the Temple Medical School, then at the Jefferson Medical School and Philadelphia Polyclinic. When that affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania, he was appointed vice-dean and professor at the graduate school of that university until his death.

During World War I, when the supply of arsphenamine was cut off from Germany, with Raiziss and Kolmer, he was able to synthesize and supply this medication – the first Salvarsan in the United States – for thousands of patients suffering from syphilis.

Schamberg was an eloquent public speaker and a very effective opponent of the anti-vaccinationists. He served one year as president of the American Dermatological Association.

• A compend of diseases of the skin. Philadelphia, 1898; 8th edition, 1928.
• Acute contagious diseases.
  With William Henry Welch (1850-1934). Philadelphia, 1905.
  Schamberg was particularly interested in the role of bacteria in skin diseases.
• Diseases of the skin and the eruptive fevers.
  Philadelphia and London, 1908; 4th edition, 1921.