ABSTRACT
WALTER BROWN SHELLEY was born in St. Paul, Minnesota February 6, 1917. He earned an M.D. and Ph.D. in Physiology at the University of Minnesota 1937–1943. After several years of conducting research on heat stress at the Armored Medical Research Laboratory at Fort Knox, KY, he took his residency at the University of Pennsylvania. Following a year with Walter C.Lobitz at Dartmouth Medical School he returned to Penn, joining Donald M.Pillsbury in practice. The next 30 years saw him dividing his time equally between clinical research and private practice. The practice yielded more than a dozen new dermatologic entities and the research half of this life saw him with his associates demonstrating the role of sweat retention in Fox-Fordyce disease, as well as in miliaria. Studies on pruritus with Robert P.Arthur led to the isolation of mucunain, the proteolytic enzyme responsible for the effect of itch powder. Another first was the histologic demonstration of unmyelinated C fibers in the epidermis, which conduct the itch sensation.
