James Nevins Hyde was born in Norwich, Connecticut on June 21, 1840. He graduated from Yale University in 1861, and after initiating medical studies at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City, he entered the U.S. Navy as an assistant surgeon. He performed so well, especially in his care of yellow fever patients during the Civil War, that he was cited by the Secretary of the Navy. After the war he served on the USS Ticonderoga under Admiral Farragut until he resigned from the Navy. Following this he obtained his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1869.

Dr. Hyde moved to Chicago in 1873 and began his teaching career in dermatology -- the first such teacher -- at Rush Medical College. After also serving on the medical faculty of Chicago Medical College (later Northwestern University Medical School) he was then appointed Professor of Skin and Venereal Disease at Rush Medical College. Dr. Hyde held this post for thirty-one years, being appointed Chairman in 1905. He also served in administrative positions and on the Board of Trustees at Rush. In addition he was dermatologist or consultant to the staff of six Chicago hospitals and served for eight years as lecturer at the University of Chicago.

Dr. Hyde was a founder and twice president of the American Dermatological Association. In 1901 he became a founder of the Chicago Dermatological Society, serving as president in 1901 and 1908.

Dr. Hyde was an excellent clinician and teacher and was the first physician to recognize the critical relationship between sunlight exposure and the development of skin cancer. He authored a widely read textbook entitled A Practical Treatise on Diseases of the Skin, which underwent eight editions from 1883 to 1909. With Frank Montgomery he also published A Manual of Syphilis and Venereal Diseases. He was the author, too, of over one hundred scientific papers.

Dr. Hyde's varied interests involved considerable time devoted to the Episcopal Church as chorister and teacher, and the composition of poetry and literary essays. He died suddenly on September 6, 1910, presumably of heart disease. Samuel Zakon, a fellow dermatologist, stated, "He flooded everything he did with his energy and enthusiasm" which, as Bill Beatty once wrote, was "not a bad summarizing comment for a thoughtful, literate, and thoroughly human naval and medical man."

He was elected to membership in The Chicago Literary Club in 1875, the year after the Club was founded, and served as President in 1889-90. He delivered nineteen papers during his thirty-five years of membership.

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