Francis Xavier Dercum

Francis Xavier Dercum (August 10, 1856 – April 24, 1931) was an American physician and educator who first described the disease Adiposis dolorosa (also known as Dercum's disease). He served as chief of the Nervous Disease Clinic at the University of Pennsylvania and as professor of neurology at Jefferson Medical College. He worked as a neurologist at the Philadelphia General Hospital for almost 25 years. He partnered with Eadweard Muybridge to create some of the first motion picture images of patients with neurological movement disorders. He served as editor of A Textbook on Nervous Disorders which was the first multi-authored textbook in neurology. He served as president of the American Philosophical Society. He treated Ima Hogg, the first lady of Texas, for severe depression in 1918 and President Woodrow Wilson after a stroke in 1919.