[Rarebooks] fa: THE ENTIRE WORKS OF DR. THOMAS SYDENHAM - 1753

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, May 20. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/87dgpd4

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.


John Swan (editor & translator): The Entire Works of Dr. Thomas Sydenham, Newly made English from the Originals: Wherein The History of Acute and Chronic Diseases, and the Safest and most Effectual Methods of treating them, are faithfully, clearly, and accurately delivered. To which are added, explanatory and practical notes, From the best Medicinal Writers; With others by the Translator: Further  illustrating the principal Matters, and teaching the Practice of Inoculation, the Use of Chalybeats, and mineral Waters, with the Remedies and Regimen proper for nephritic Patients. The third edition, with all the notes inserted in their proper places. By John Swan, M.D. London: Printed for E. Cave, at St John’s Gate, 1753. Thick 8vo (200 x 118 mm) in early/period calf rebacked in modern calf with raised bands, gilt-lettered spine label, new endpapers; [2], iv, 2, [v]-x, xxii, [4], 672, [20]p.; with the leaf of publisher's adverts. ESTC T121381.

Some bumping and wear to the corners of the boards; light foxing to the title-page which is trimmed at the top and bears the early/contemporary ownership signature of John Heath; spotting to four leaves and a short worm trail to the bottom blank margins of the first four leaves; contents otherwise quite clean and fresh, firmly bound. Gilt stamp of the Birmingham Medical Institute on the spine foot and a presentation label on the paste-down signed by Dr. Smallwood Savage (early 20th-century English obstetrician); no other library marks to binding or contents. A solid, handsome copy.

Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689) has been called the "English Hippocrates" and the Father of English medicine. "One of the greatest figures in internal medicine,… his reputation rests on his first-hand accounts of such conditions as the malarial fevers of his times, gout, scarlatina, measles, etc." (Garrison, Heirs of Hippocrates). Contains his account of the London Plague Years of 1665-1666 as well as  observations on smallpox, venereal disease, dropsy, epilepsy, hypochondria, the "hysteric passion in women," etc. etc. Also includes the Life of Sydenham written (anonymously) by Samuel Johnson.