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Vanity Fair medical portrait of Mr Erasmus Wilson MRCS. He was a specialist in the diseases of the skin. In 1869 he founded the chair and museum of dermatology in the Royal College of Surgeons, of which he was chosen president in 1881,
In 1878 he earned the thanks of the nation by defraying the expense of bringing Cleopatra's Needle from Alexandria to London, where it was erected on the Thames Embankment. The British Government had not thought it worth the expense of transportation. He was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1881.
Accompanied by a photocopy of the descriptive text.