Extension of Bouillaud’s work on the coincidence of heart disease and acute rheumatism. He regarded fever as the effect of endocarditis (see also No. 2749).

Owen’s first large-scale original work covered the whole range of the toothed vertebrates, living and fossil, and discussed in detail the micrsocopic structure of the teeth and the physiology of dentition. Includes 168 plates. His comprehensive investigation of the morphology of mammalian teeth led him into palaeontology, of which he soon became one of the masters. Owen, son-in-law of William Clift, was from 1836-56 Hunterian professor at the Royal College of Surgeons. During the 1860s he was one of the most virulent opponents of Darwinism. Some copies of this work were issued on large paper.

Classical description of striated muscle

First description of acute anterior poliomyelitis, which Heine separated from other forms of paralysis; he described the deformities arising from the disease. He also called attention to congenital spastic paraplegia, which, following Little’s classic description (No. 4691.1), was termed “Little’s disease”.

The best edition of Paré’s works, edited by Malgaigne. An English translation of Pare's Oeuvres by Thomas Johnson appeared as early as 1634. See also No. 5565. Janet Doe published A bibliography of the works of Ambroise Paré, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1943 and F. R. Packard published Life and times of Ambroise Paré.,. New York, 1921. Malgaigne's comprehensive historical introduction to his edition was translated by Wallace Hamby as Surgery and Ambroise Paré, Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1965. Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

Vol.1 by Thomas Lawson; Vols 2 & 3 by Richard H. Coolidge. Digital facsimiles from the Internet Archive at this link.

Poiseuille’s law of the flow of liquids in tubes – fundamental in blood viscosimetry. Abstract; complete monograph in Mém. Acad. roy. Sci. (Paris), 1846, 9, 433-544. First book-form edition, Paris, 1844.

Baillarger demonstrated that the cortex is made up of layers and that fibers connect the cortex with the internal white matter. English translation in von Bonin, Some papers on the cerebral cortex, Springfield: Charles C Thomas, 1960.

“Pacini’s corpuscles”, end organs of sensory nerves, earlier described by Vater in 1717.

In his work on medical statistics Gavarret improved and systematized the method of Louis and gave special consideration to therapeutic problems.

Burton was the first to note the blue line on the gums in lead poisoning – “Burton’s blue line" – an important diagnostic sign. He was physician to St. Thomas’s Hospital, London.

Bassi’s work on the muscardine disease of silkworms (see No. 2532), with its prophecy of the discovery of microbes as the causal agents of other diseases, inspired Henle to write this famous essay on miasms and contagions. He laid down postulates on the aetiological relation of microbes to disease which became fundamentals of bacteriology and which did much to check the reckless speculation which had arisen regarding micro-organisms. Koch later developed these postulates (see Nos. 2331, 2332, 2536, and 5167). Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

English translation in Bull. Hist. Med., 1936, 6, 911-83.

Blood transfusion used in treatment of hemophilia.

In Europe, outside the British Isles, exophthalmic goitre, or Graves’s disease, is known as “Basedow’s disease”. His accurate description of four cases in which he described exophthalmos, goitre and palpitation led to the phrase “Merseburg triad”, associating these conditions with the name of his own town. He also mentioned emaciation, excessive perspiration, and nervousness as additional symptoms and anticipated later methods of treatment by his advocacy of mineral waters containing iodide and bromide of sodium. Partial English translation in No. 2241.

The first case of pituitary obesity with infantilism (Fröhlich’s syndrome) was reported by Mohr. Coincidentally, this appears in the same volume of the Wochenschrift as does Basedow’s classic description of exophthalmic goitre.

Bodington was one of the first to advocate the sanatorium treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis, with “cold dry air for healing and closing cavities and ulcers of the lungs”. His idea was much criticized and he was discouraged from pursuing it. The first sanatorium to be run on lines similar to those suggested by Bodington was that established by H. Brehmer at Görbersdorf in 1859. The book was reprinted in 1906.

First report of rat-bite fever to appear in a medical journal.

Typhoid and typhus were often confused. Stewart made a careful analysis of a number of cases of both fevers and clearly demonstrated that there were in Britain two distinct fevers – typhoid and typhus.

Anatomical sequel to No. 5769, with outstanding illustrations.

“Brodie’s tumor”. Reprinted in Med. Classics, 1938, 2, 941-54.

Billings considered Malgaigne “the greatest surgical historian and critic the world has ever seen”; Leonardo (No. 5812) says that his greatest contribution to surgery was his unique manner of evaluating surgical techniques and innovations by which the then new methods of statistical computation were conjoined with actual surgical experiments. This work was also published in vol. 1 of No. 59. English translation by W. Hamby, Norman, Oklahoma, 1965. Digital facsimile of the 1840 edition from the Internet Archive at this link.

The first successful operation for vesicovaginal fistula is believed to be that performed in August 1838, by Mettauer, a Virginian gynecologist. He introduced metallic sutures and a retention catheter.

First report of a chorionic tumor.

This has traditionally been considered the first major history of Arab medicine. It was written mostly in the form of a chronological series of bio-bibliographies, and should also be considered a pioneering bibliography of Arab medicine and natural history. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Clarke left a detailed account of African trypanosomiasis; he saw cases of the disease while serving as a colonial surgeon at Sierra Leone, and named it “narcoleptic dropsy”.

The only medical book illustrated by Honoré Daumier (1808-79), and a great satire in verse on the medical profession. Digital facsimile from BnF Gallica at this link.

Hünefeld accidentally observed the first protein crystals— those of hemoglobin—in partically dried samples of mammalian blood blood pressed between glass plates. On page 160 Hünefeld noted that he had seen, in some samples, “tabular, crystalline precipitations, which under the microscope appeared sharply defined and colored bright red.” Figures 7 and 8 in the plate illustrating Hünefeld’s work show the crystals he observed in pig’s blood and human blood respectively; these represent the first published illustrations of hemoglobin crystals. Digital facsimile from the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek at this link.

Catalogue of the library of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, prepared for its sale at auction. Books were listed for sale individually, organized by size. Author and title and place published were listed, as were the number of pages, and whether or not there were plates; date of publication was not mentioned, however. Digital facsimile from HistoryofScience.com at this link.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Part 1: Fossil mammalia by Richard Owen; Part 2: Mammalia by George Waterhouse; Part 3: Birds by John Gould; Part 4: Fish by Leonard Jenyns; Part 5: Reptiles by Thomas Bell. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

"The following Catalogue is, to the best of our knowledge and belief, a true Catalogue of the Anatomical Prepartions left by the late Dr. William Hunter.--G. Fordyce, David Pitcairn, W. Combe."

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Includes a discussion of the Hindu method of rhinoplasty and other plastic operations. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Numbers 901-929 in Morton's catalogue are "Thirty Skulls of genuine unmixed NEGROES born in Africa. This interesting series series was collected by Don José Rodriguez Cisnerso, M. D. of Havana, in the island of Cuba, and by him presented to me for the purpose of ascertaining the internal capacity of the cranium in the pure AFRICAN race."

Morton believed that he could define the intellectual ability of a race by the skull capacity. A large volume meant a large brain and high intellectual capacity, and a small skull indicated a small brain and decreased intellectual capacity. He also claimed that each race had a separate origin, and that a descending order of intelligence could be discerned that placed Caucasians at the pinnacle and Negroes at the lowest point, with various other races in between. Considered the origin of scientific racism, this theory provided a "scientific" justification for slavery.

 "Samuel George Morton is often thought of as the originator of "American School" of ethnography, a school of thought in antebellum American science that claimed the difference between humans was one of species rather than variety and is seen by some as the origin of scientific racism.^[6]

"Morton argued against the single creation story of the Bible (monogenism) and instead supported a theory of multiple racial creations (polygenism). Morton claimed the Bible supported polygenism, and within working in a biblical framework his theory held that each race had been created separately and each was given specific, irrevocable characteristics.^[7]

"After inspecting three mummies from ancient Egyptian catacombs, Morton concluded that Caucasians and Negroes were already distinct three thousand years ago. Since the Bible indicated that Noah's Ark had washed up on Mount Ararat, only a thousand years ago before this, Morton claimed that Noah's sons could not possibly account for every race on earth. According to Morton's theory of polygenesis, races have been separate since the start^{[7] " (Wikipedia article on Samuel George Morton, accessed 01-2017).}

Digital facsimile of the 1840 edition from the Internet Archive at this link. Morton continued to develop and expand his collection, which reached 1512 human and animal skulls in the third edition of his catalogue published in 1849. That catalogue contained an introduction, some illustrations, and a complete index. Digital facsimile of the 1849 edition from the Internet Archive at this link.

Morton's last paper on the measurement of cranial capacity and its relationship to intellectual ability may have been "Observations on the size of brain in various races and families of man," Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences, October, 1849.  Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from BnF Gallica at this link.

Extensively annotated critical texts of Theophilus Protospatharius, Leo the Physician, Constantinus Pogonatos (De cibis; On foods). Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Audubon created 65 new images for the octavo edition, supplementing the original 435 in the double-elephant folio edition of 1827-1838. The resulting series of 500 chromolithographed plates constituted the most extensive American color-plate book produced up to that time. The Philadelphia printer J.T. Bowen reduced the double-elephant folio plates by camera lucida. The original configurations of the elephant folio were altered so that only one species is depicted per plate, and the resulting chromolithographs incorporated significant changes in the backgrounds and compositions. The text in the Ornithological biography was rearranged according to Audubon's A synopsis of the birds of North America (1839).  Digital facsimile from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

An effort to demonstrate that most suicides are not criminal but are victims of mental disease. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Includes two hand-colored lithographs depicting costumes of "plague doctors" -- one from the Middle Ages in Marseille, the other from Marseille in 1819; the similarities are striking! Digital facsimile from wellcomecollection.org at this link.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Many of the histological discoveries of Henle are described in the above. He classified tissues histologically. In the section on Gefässnerven (pp. 510, 690) Henle demonstrated the presence of smooth muscle in the endothelial coat of small arteries. Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

Includes (p. 40 et seq.) description of ”Valleix’s points”, tender points on the course of certain nerves in neuralgia.

Brief but accurate descriptions of 600 human and animal specimens, with 30 outstanding plates.

Crusell began to use electrolysis as a cauterizing agent in 1839. See No. 5604.

Demonstration of the cellular origin of spermatozoa.

Bennett visited Paris and Germany, and learned there of the beneficial effects of cod liver oil. His book drew the attention of English medical men to the value of the oil.

Further modification of and improvements in the classification of bacteria.

Luke’s operation for femoral hernia.

Trommer’s test for glucose in urine.

Mercier emphasized the importance of the muscle fibres around the bladder neck, “Mercier’s bar”, in prostatism.

Independently of Schönlein (No. 4029) Gruby discovered the achorion of favus, describing it definitely as the cause of the disease, a point about which Schönlein was in doubt.

See No. 4032.

Henderson and Paterson described the inclusion body of molluscum contagiosum, “Henderson–Paterson body”.

First important treatise on parotid tumors.

Report on 140 cases of tenotomy for treatment of club-foot.

Discovery of Candida albicans in thrush.

Ferrall’s operation for enucleation of the eyeball (p. 354).

Includes No. 6576, together with Historia particular de las operaciones quirúrgicas, 1841; Historia general de la medicina, 2 vols. 1841-43; and Vade mecum histórico y bibliográfico, etc., 1844. Facsimile reproduction, 1964.

Forms Vols. 3-6 of No. 6575.

Valentin was the first to discover a trypanosome; this was in a salmon. English translation in Kean (No. 2268.1).

The Greek physician Asclepiades acquired a great reputation in Rome. His remedies included change of diet, friction, bathing, and exercise. The above edition includes Greek, Latin, and German texts. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Lefoulon introduced the term "orthodontia" in this book, and went into more detail and recorded more notable advances in the practice of orthodontics than any of his predecessors.

"Lefoulon introduced treatment without extraction. He had the happy idea of treatment both by an elastic excentric force (lingual spring) and by an elastic concentric force (vestibular spring). He was the first to obtain transversal maxillary expansion" (Dechaume & Huard, Histoire illustrée de l'art dentaire, p. 76). Hoffmann-Axthelm, History of Dentistry, pp. 364-65. Weinberger, History of Orthodontics 253-71. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Large folio, with 94 hand-colored lithographed plates by Archibald Henning (1805-64).

The first study of all the trees of North America. Digital facsimile of all 6 vols. from the Hathi Trust at this link.

Includes texts of the following authors:  Abitianus, Actuarius, Johannes, Alexander, of Aphrodisias, Andromachus (Senior), Apollonius, Dyscolus, 2nd cent, Archelaus (philosophus), Cassius (Iatrosophistes), Hermes, Trismegistus, Hierophilus (Sophistes), Hierotheus, Marcellus Sidetes, Maximus Planudae, Mercurius, Cyrus, Palladius Alexandrinus, Psellus, Michael, Soranus, of Ephesus, Sotion, Stephanus (Alexandrinus), Symeon Magister, Theophrastus, Theophylactus Simocatta, Xenocrates Aphrodisiensis. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

In this comprehensive study of prostitution in Lisbon Cruz analyzed the history of prostitution in Portugal and compared it to the practice in Japan, India, Egypt, ancient Greece and Rome, as well as a number of modern states. He defended legally regulated prostitution as a necessary public health measure. The leaves and folding tables between pp. 438 and [552] consist of 13 numbered “Mappas” containing statistical tables and explanations thereof for various districts of the city of Lisbon pertaining to the theme of the book. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

The first American book with chromolithographed illustrations printed in America. The chromolithographed images depict American medicinal plants. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

In 1836 King Louis-Philippe, enthusiastic for Southern Hemisphere exploration, sponsored Dumont d'Urville's plan for a circumnavigation focusing on the South Seas. D'Urville had already distinguished himself on two Pacific expeditions and was eager to rival the achievements of James Cook. Between 1837 and 1840, the ships Astrolabe and Zélée explored the waters of the Antarctic area and Oceania in extremely harsh conditions; almost forty crew members died or deserted. However, d'Urville discovered a new portion of the Antarctic coast, shed light on the ethnography of several Pacific islands and brought back multitudes of botanical specimens. D'Urville published his account of the voyage, including his contributions to geography, natural history and ethnography in 10 vols, from 1841 to1846. Vol. 10, includes extracts from his correspondence, as well as a biography. The extensive scientific team who sailed on the voyage published their reports in 13 additional volumes. Their works are listed below.

Histoire du Voyage par M. Dumont d'Urville 10 vols, 1841-1843-46- [47]. Text. Plus Atlas pittoresque. 2 vols. 200 plates, 8 maps.

Anthropologie par M. [Pierre-Marie-Alexandre] Dumoutier, texte ...par M. É[mile]. Blanchard. 1854.

Anthropologie Atlas (50 plates) 1842-47.

Zoologie, par MM. [Jacques Bernard] Hombron et [C. H.] Jacquinot

Vol. 1. De l'homme dans ses rapports avec la Création, par M. Hombron. 1846.

Vol. 2. Considérations générales sur l'anthropologie suivies d'observations sur les races humaines de l'Amérique méridionale et de l'Océanie, par M. H. Jacquinot.

Vol. 3. Mammifères et oiseaux, par M. H. Jacinot et M. [Jacques] Pucheran.

           Reptiles et poissons, par M. H. Jacquinot et M. A. Guichenot.

           Crustacés par M. H. Jacquinot et M. H. Lucas. 1853.

Vol. 4. Description des insects, par E[mile]. Blanchard. 1853. 

Vol. 5. Description des mollusques, coquilles et zoophytes, par L. Rousseau. 1854.

Zoologie Atlas: Mammifères, 29 colored plates; Oiseaux, 37 colored plates; Reptiles, 18 colored plates; Poissons, 5 colored plates, Insectes, 25 colored plates; Crustacés, 9 colored plates; Mollusques, 20 colored plates; Zoophytes, 3 colored plates. 1842-53.

Botanique

Vol. 1. Plantes cellulaires par  [Jean Pierre François] C[amille] Montagne.

Vol. 2. Description des plantes vasculaires, par J. Decaisne.

Botanique Atlas. 66 plates (20 colored). 1852.

Géologie, Minérologie et Géographie physique...par M. J. Grange. 2 vols. 1848, 1854.

Géologie Atlas. 9 plates, 4 colored maps.

Physique, par MM. Vincendon-Dumoulin et Coupvent-Desbois. Vol. 1. 1842.

Hydrographie, [par M. Vincendon-Dumoulin. 2 vols. 1843, 1851.

Hydrographie Atlas. 57 maps. 1847.

Digital facsimile of d'Urville's 10 vols. texte from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

This 11-page pamphlet was the first American work on orthodontics.

The author described himself as "Surgeon. Surgical and Mechanical Dentist."  Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

"In 1837, at the age of 25, Grey led an ill-prepared expedition that explored North-West Australia. British settlers in Australia at the time knew little of the region and only one member of Grey's party had been there before. It was believed possible at that time that one of the world's largest rivers might drain into the Indian Ocean in North-West Australia; if that were found to be the case, the region it flowed through might be suitable for colonisation. Grey, with Lieutenant Franklin Lushington, of the 9th (East Norfolk) Regiment of Foot, offered to explore the region. On 5 July 1837, they sailed from Plymouth in command of a party of five, the others being Lushington; Dr William Walker, a surgeon and naturalist; and Corporals John Coles and Auger of the Royal Sappers and Miners. Others joined the party at Cape Town, and early in December they landed at Hanover Bay (west of Uwins Island in the Bonaparte Archipelago). Travelling south, the party traced the course of the Glenelg River. After experiencing boat wrecks, near-drowning, becoming completely lost, and Grey himself being speared in the hip during a skirmish with Aboriginal people, the party gave up. After being picked up by HMS Beagle and the schooner Lynher, they were taken to Mauritius to recover.^{[5][10][11][12]}

"Two years later, Grey returned to Western Australia and was again wrecked with his party, again including Surgeon Walker, at Kalbarri; they were the first Europeans to see the Murchison River, but then had to walk to Perth, surviving the journey through the efforts of Kaiber, a Whadjuk Noongar man (that is, indigenous to the Perth region), who organised food and what water could be found (they survived by drinking liquid mud). At about this time, Grey learnt the Noongar language.^{[5][13][14][15]} 

Including four chromolithographed plates by J. H. Hall, Albany, N.Y., this is the earliest illustrated book published in the U.S. on the pathological effects of alcoholism. Digital facsimile from the U.S. National Library of Medicine at this link. 

In this review article Owen coined the term Dinosaur (pp. 102-103). In surveying fossil bones and teeth found by Gideon Mantell, William Buckland, and others, he observed that three genera--Iguanodon, Megalosaurus, and Hylaeosurus--shared similarities in the structure of their vertebrae and elephant-like posture. For this reason Owen classified them as a sub-order in the Saurian order, and called them Dinosauria, meaning terrible lizards. Digital facsimile from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

Mayer demonstrated the principle of the conservation of energy as far as physiological processes are concerned.

Wagner was professor at Göttingen. His literary output was enormous. In the above work he contributed the sections on sympathetic nerves, nerve-ganglia, and nerve-endings. This work contained 63 extensive review articles from 30 authors.

First classification of the organic foodstuffs and the processes of nutrition. With this book Liebig introduced the concept of metabolism into physiology. English translation, London, 1842.

Discovery that benzoic acid taken in with food is excreted in the urine as hippuric acid. (But see the footnote to p. 474 of Garrison’s History of medicine, 1929.)

Announces the discovery of the blood platelets.

A case of chronic hereditary chorea in adults (“Huntington’s chorea”, see No. 4699) is described on pp. 312-13 of vol. 2. This is in the form of a letter from one of Dunglison's recently graduated students at Jefferson Medical College, Charles Oscar Waters. Waters account of the disease was one of the first to note that the disease is hereditary, "within the third generation at farthest." Dunglison included Waters' description of the disease in his book even though he had never personally seen a case. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

These writers showed the sympathetic nervous system to consist largely of small, medullated fibers originating from the sympathetic and spinal ganglia.

Bischoff contributed important original work on the development of the rabbit.

Chadwick devoted his life to social reform. He was secretary to the Poor Law Commission when he made the above report to Parliament. In it he included a careful analysis of causes of death in 1838 and 1839 and gave a vivid picture of insanitary conditions in England and Wales. The complete report was issued in 3 vols. in 1842 (though the 2nd and 3rd volumes are infrequently found) plus a supplementary summary volume published in 1843. As a result of this and an earlier (1833) report, the foundations of later systems of government inspection were laid, a Public Health Act was passed (1848) and a General Board of Health was established. Chadwick included various lithographed maps illustrating public health issues such as deaths, contagious or epidemic diseases,  housing conditions, etc. See also No.1625.

“Bowman’s capsule”. Bowman provided convincing evidence that the glomerular corpuscle is continuous with the renal tubule and gave the first adequate description of the vascular supply of the nephron. He described the afferent and efferent arterioles as they enter and emerge from the capsule which now bears his name. In the same paper he stated his theory of renal secretion. Bowman’s work became the basis for all future studies on the physiology of the kidney. Reprinted in Med. Classics, 1940, 5, 258-91.

“Foramen of Magendie” described.

Rokitansky ranks with Morgagni as among the greatest of all writers on gross pathology. He is said to have performed over 30,000 autopsies himself. His Handbuch was for many years pre-eminent among its contemporaries. Although Rokitansky embraced more than one false doctrine, he was quick to admit and correct his mistakes. Virchow’s criticism of the first edition of the Handbuch led Rokitansky to re-write it. He foresaw the eventual importance of chemical pathology, at that time non-existent. Vol. 1 of the first edition was published last; vol. 3 was published first.

Vol. 3 (1842), p. 313: Rokitansky’s classic description of the pathological picture of acute yellow atrophy of the liver. Rokitansky named the disease; it has also been called “Rokitansky’s disease”.

English translation, 4 vols., London, 1849-54.

First description of Sarcina ventriculi, discovered by Goodsir.

Retzius introduced the method of classifying races according to the cranial or cephalic index. A German translation of his paper is available in the Arch. Anat. Physiol. wiss. Med., 1845, 84-129.

First description of pernicious anemia of pregnancy. Digital facsimile from the U.S. National Library of Medicine at this link.

Steenstrup is responsible for the theory of the “alternation of generations”. He showed that certain animals produce offspring which never resemble them but which, on the other hand, bring forth progeny which return in form and nature to their grandparents or more distant ancestors. An edition in German was also published in 1842. An English translation of the book was published by the Ray Society of London in 1845.

First clear account of chronic constrictive pericarditis.

Antyllus, a Greek surgeon who lived in Rome during the second century CE. is particularly remembered for his work on the surgery of aneurysm. He was first to recognize two forms of aneurysm–one caused by dilatation and the other following wounding of an artery. Much of his writing is available to us only through the industry of Oribasius who included it in his compilations. A German version of Antyllus is in Janus, 1847, 2, 298-329, 744-71; 1848, 3, 166-84. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

First successful ligature of the carotid artery (for secondary haemorrhage) Oct. 18, 1807, eight months before Sir Astley Cooper (No. 2929). Published 35 years after the event, this paper may set some kind of record for late reporting.

Boeck, eminent Norwegian dermatologist and syphilologist, was the first to describe Norwegian itch, scabies crustosa (“Boeck’s scabies”).

First accurate description of Trichophyton mentagrophytes, the fungus responsible for sycosis barbae. English translation of this and Gruby’s other five papers read to l’Académie des Sciences in Zakon & Benedek, David Gruby and the centenary of medical mycology, 1841-1941, Bull. Hist. Med., 1944, 16, 155-68.

“Curling’s ulcer”. Although not first to report duodenal ulcers as a complication of burns, Curling correlated the work of previous writers on the subject and directed attention to it.

First description of operation for partial excision of scapula.

Original description (p. 107) of “Carabelli’s cusp”, tuberculus anomalus, sometimes found on the lingual surface of the upper permanent molars. It was first illustrated on Tab. XI, Fig. 4e, and Tab. XIV, Fig. 4, of Kupfertafeln zu v. Carabelli’s Anatomie des Mundes, Vienna, 1842, and later described in Carabelli's Systematisches Handbuch der Zahnkunde, Band 2, which was published posthumously in 1844.

Digital facsimile of the 1842 atlas from Google Books at this link.

Braid’s scientific investigations of mesmerism convinced him that its effects did not depend on an outside force, but were natural phenomena arising from the subject’s heightened suggestibility. This 10-page pamphlet contains his first statement of these discoveries and contains the first use of the term “neuro-hypnotism”, which Braid coined to replace the unscientific “mesmerism” and “animal magnetism”.

Independently of Berg, Gruby found Candida albicans in thrush. He demonstrated its fungal nature.

Warren devised the first operation for closure of complete clefts of the palate.

Fergusson was the founder of conservative surgery. He was surgeon of the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh, before being appointed to the chair of surgery at King’s College Hospital, London, a position to which he was succeeded by Lister.

The first successful attempt at treating strabismus by myotomy. The operation was later abandoned owing to the frequently disastrous final effects. A preliminary paper appeared in Med. Ztg., 1839, 8, 227.

The original account of the first major operation performed in England using hypnosis as a form of anesthesia. The amputation was performed by Ward. Topham, a lawyer interested in mesmerism, performed the hypnosis. The controversy caused by this operation led to Elliotson’s book (No. 5650.2). Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Clay, pioneer ovariotomist in Great Britain, introduced the word “ovariotomy”. (See also his later paper, No. 6054.)

Description of the speculum invented by Récamier.

Oliver Wendell Holmes was the first to establish the contagious nature of puerperal fever. His essay on the subject took a strong line against the opinions then prevailing, stirring up violent opposition among the obstetricians of Philadelphia. Reprinted in Med. Classics, 1936, 1, 211-43.

Additamenta, by Julius Rosenbaum, 2 parts, 1842-47. Reprinted (without Additamenta), 1960.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

This semi-popular work was one of the first scientific studies of sleep. It was also the first book typeset by a mechanical typesetting machine, rather than hand-set type. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link. For further information see the entry at HistoryofInformation.com at this link.

The collection formed by John Hunter, to which was added the collection formed by Hans Sloane acquired from the British Museum in 1809, and material from other donors. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

With slight modification, Darwin's work remains the accepted explanation for these phenomena. "Even if he had done nothing else, the theory of the coral islands alone would have placed Darwin in the very front of investigations of nature" (Geikie).

Digital facsimile from the Biodiversity Heritage Archive at this link.

Bartlett's book contains the first complete description of typhoid fever in English. In 1908 Osler wrote, "The chief interest of the work today lies in the remarkably accurate picture which is given of typhoid fever--a picture the main outlines of which are as well and firmly drawn in any work which has appeared since." Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Plates lithographed after drawings by Émile Beau. Digital facsimile from BnFGallica at this link.

Extensively annotated Greek & Latin edition of this Byzantine treatise on anatomy and physiology, edited by William Alexander Greenhill. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

Digital facsimile from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

Bennett confirmed and extended the observations and experiments of Gruby concerning the mycodermatous vegetations found in the crusts of the disease called Tinea favosa, or Zorigo lupinosa of Bateman; he announced the occasional existence of, and described, a plant found growing on the lining membrane or cheesy matter of tubercular cavities in the lungs of man. This was the first description of aspergillus (a pathogenic fungus) growing in the lung tissue of humans.

Digital facsimile of the separate offprint (copy inscribed by Bennett to Bischoff) from the Hathi Trust at this link.

The New York Natural History and Geological Survey was established by the state legislature in 1836 under the direction of James Ellsworth DeKay. By far the most ambitious scientific project undertaken in the United States to that date, it was issued in six sections: Zoology, Botany, Mineralogy, Geology, Agriculture, and Paleontology. Volumes began to appear in 1842. The first four parts, a total of twelve volumes, were issued in 1842-44, and the five volumes of the Agriculture section between 1846 and 1854. The final section, Paleontology, began publication in 1846, but under its editor, James Hall, it took on a life of its own. Hall managed to turn it into a long career in his position as state paleontologist, ultimately issuing thirteen volumes where only one had been planned. Without Hall’s lobbying for additional state funds, the entire project would have been completed in the 1850s. Instead Hall was still in office, at age 83, when the final volumes were published.

Natural History of New York is notable for its vast array of color plates, and in later volumes its use of other innovative forms of natural history illustration. In all it contains several thousand plates, colored and uncolored, making it a project on the same scale as the Pacific Railroad Survey. The set is much less well known because far fewer volumes were produced than the U.S. government publications, but it clearly was the model on which the great U.S. surveys of the 1850s were based. Meisel includes a detailed collation.

Begun in 1256, this eight-volume biographical dictionary of Islamic scholarship and literature entitled Wafayāt al-aʿyān wa-anbāʾ abnāʾ az-zamān (وفيات الأعيان وأنباء أبناء الزمان) ('Deaths of Eminent Men and the Sons of the Epoch'), was completed in 1274. Khallikān documented the lives of notable writers, scientists, religious and legal scholars.
Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

This work with its elaborate series of 26 lithographed schematic drawings was certainly the most comprehensive work on hand and foot protheses of its time.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

In this book Prichard presented his arguments for introducing the concept of diminished responsibility and irresistable impulse into the legal precedents. Hunter & McAlpine, 836-42. 

Digital facsimile from the Wellcome Collection at this link.

Digital facsimile from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

The introduction of Western hydrotherapy to the Ottoman world. Focusing upon the hot springs of Bursa, Bernard promoted the healing effects of warm waters to the general Ottoman population. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link. 

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

A treatise on malformations of particular interest to surgeons, including facial clefts, urogenital anomalies, anorectal atresias, parasitic twins, and limb duplications. Digital facsimile of the text, without the volume of plates, from Google Books at this link.

“Syme’s amputation” at the ankle joint, an operation first successfully performed by him on 8 Sept, 1842.

Matteucci’s “rheoscopic frog” effect.

First description and definition of electrotonus.

First gastric fistula established specially for the purpose of experimentation.

Gastric fistula for experimental purposes.

Bernard showed that if sucrose is injected directly into the blood it is eliminated by the kidneys while glucose is retained, and that gastric juice transforms sucrose into assimilable sugar. See F. J. Holmes, Claude Bernard and animal chemistry: The emergence of a scientist, Cambridge, Mass., 1974. This includes a history of research on digestion from 1750-1848.

Little’s description of congenital cerebral spastic diplegia resulted in the condition being named “Little’s disease”. See also No. 4735.

Barry was the first to observe the spermatozoon within the ovum.

Graves was one of the founders of the Irish school of medicine and one of the most important figures in Irish medicine at the middle of the 19th century. Second edition of the book (as Clinical lectures on the practice of medicine) in 1848.

First published in the Medical Times & Gazette, 1840-42, Watson’s famous lectures appeared in book form and formed the most important treatise of medicine for a quarter-century. Watson wrote in a fine style, and his book was reorganized as a sound guide to clinical medicine. Watson suggested (vol. 2, p. 349) rubber gloves for antisepsis; he also instructed his students to wash their hands in a solution of chloride of lime before assisting at deliveries.

Ludwig wrote a classic monograph on renal secretion. He theorized that urine formation could be explained purely in terms of the laws of physics and chemistry, and that under the hydrostatic pressure of the blood in the capillaries of the glomerulus, protein and cell-free fluid is separated from the blood by a simple physical process of filtration. This theory contradicted Bowman’s contention that the glomerulus secretes fluid. See also Ludwig’s habitation thesis, from which the above work was expanded: De viribus physicis secretionem urinae adjuvantibus. Marburg, Elwert, 1842. Digital facsimile of th 1843 work from Goethe Univerität at this link.

A second edition was published in 1862. Digital facsimile of the second edition from the Medical Heritage Library at the Internet Archive, at this link.

Addison gave an important account of the process of inflammation. See L.J. Rather, Addison and the white corpuscles: An aspect of nineteenth-century biology. London, Wellcome Institute, 1972. See also No. 3059.

Gives texts of German tracts on syphilis published between 1495 and 1510.

Addison made important observations on the blood corpuscles. He is by some considered “the world’s first hematologist”. He gave the first description of leucocytosis, so named by Virchow in 1858, and he anticipated Cohnheim’s conception of inflammation. He was first to observe diapedesis. See Lancet, 1907, 1,182-83. See also No. 2294.

The first monograph on hematology in its "modern" sense. Andral established analysis of the blood on the basis of exact knowledge of the blood components. He analysed the blood fibrin and albumin. He recognized several forms of anemia, including that due to lead poisoning. English translation, 1844.

Removal of a fibrous growth from the nostril by division of the nasal and maxillary bones, July 8, 1841. Preliminary note in the same journal, 1842, 3, 257.

An early description of a case of subacute bacterial endocarditis is reported on pp. 227-32 (Case 8).

First description of the presystolic murmur in mitral stenosis. Partial English translation in No. 2241.

An important account of dissecting aneurysm. Peacock collected all previously published cases and added a few of his own to a total of 19.

First accurate description of Microsporon audouini, the fungus of Willan’s porrigo decalvans, tinea tonsurans, “Gruby’s disease”.

Reports of a series of experiments upon dogs to determine the best way to treat intestinal wounds. First published in West. J. Med. Surg., 1843. 7, 1-50, [81]-141, [161]-224.

Desirabode may have been the first to discuss the use of fluoride compounds for caries prevention. See No. 3692.1. English translation of 2nd ed., Baltimore, 1847.

Braid inaugurated modern hypnotism, the word itself being introduced by him. His theories were adopted by Broca, Charcot, Liébeault, and Bernheim; thus he founded the French School. New edition, edited with an introduction biographical and bibliographical embodying the author's later views and further evidence on the subject by Arthur Edward Waite  (London: George Redway, 1899).

The epidemic of relapsing fever in Edinburgh in 1843 was well described by Cormack. He was first editor of the Association Medical Journal which later became the British Medical Journal.

Relapsing fever was given its name by Craigie, in his description of the Edinburgh epidemic.

Dubini first found the hookworm of ankylostomiasis in 1838. His account of 1843, describing it, named it Agchylostoma duodenale, a name etymologically erroneous. Partial English translation in Kean (No. 2268.1).

Himly was professor of ophthalmology at Jena and later at Göttingen. He introduced clinical teaching in ophthalmology.

Küchler introduced test readings of print at a distance, for examination of patients.

Elliotson was one of the first in England to perform surgical operations with the aid of hypnotism. He was a great friend of Dickens and Thackeray, but his views on hypnotism were bitterly opposed by Thomas Wakley, editor of the Lancet, whose onslaughts eventually led to his downfall.

First successful double oöphorectomy. Communicated in a letter to the editor by J. M. Foltz.

Simpson introduced many important procedures into gynecology and obstetrics; among them may be mentioned his use of the uterine sound for diagnosing retro-positions of the uterus

Lever, of Guy’s Hospital, was the first to report the finding of albuminous urine in connection with puerperal convulsions.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link. 

Gruby discovered trypanosomes in the frog. He first suggested the name “trypanosome” to describe the parasite.

Part 1: Flora of Lord Auckland and Campbell's Islands (1843-45); Part 2: Flora of Fuegia, the Falklands, Karguellen's land, etc. (1845-47); Part 3: Flora of New Zealand. 2 vols. (1851-53); Part 4: Flora of Tasmania. 2 vols. (1853-59). Digital facsimiles at the Internet Archive at this link. (See also No. 7446).

An atlas of six large hand-colored folding maps originally issued to accompany Prichard's popular work, The natural history of man, first issued in 1843. The maps were revised and re-issued in 1851 and 1861.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

Digital facsimile of the copy presented by Hinds to Charles Darwin, with Darwin's annotations, from the Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link. This work also appeared as a section of Edward Belcher's Narrative of a voyage round the world performed in Her Majesty's Ship Sulphur....2 vols. (London, 1843). Digital facsimile of Belcher's work from the Internet Archive at this link.

The most comprehensive source about British mesmerism of the period, and an invaluable reference for contemporary ideas and developments not only in mesmerism (hypnosis) but also in phrenology, neurology and psychiatry. “It was round The Zoist, and hence of course round Elliotson, that British mesmerism centered during its period of most active expansion, from 1843 until the early 1850s.... More serious and more educated adherents subscribed, contributed and sent in cases; interested outsiders turned to it to find out more.... Setting aside articles on phrenology, mesmeric cures of disease fill the greatest percentage of its pages, followed by cases of surgical operations performed with mesmeric anesthesia” (Gault, A history of hypnotism, 207-208). One of the most prolific contributors to the journal was Scottish surgeon James Esdaile, who performed over a hundred painless operations on mesmerized patients in the 1840s while stationed in India; a partial list of these operations, including the amputation of an arm and breast and the removal of 17 scrotal tumors, is included in the 1846 volume of The Zoist. Digital facsimiles of all volumes are available from Google Books. The link to vol.1 is here.

Chiefly specimens collected by medical officers stationed in Canada, Australia, and India, as well as other colonies.  Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

For a long time this was the most comprehensive botany of any U.S. state. Digital facsimile from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

McWilliam included a history of yellow fever, pathology, description of symptoms, sequences, causes, treatment. He also described the state of medicine among the Africans. He specifically described the ventilation of the ships, which was carried out on the plan adopted by David Boswell Reid for the houses of parliament, and an abstract of meteorological observations, and a brief account of the geology of the Niger, condensed from the notes of William Stanger. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Froriep described what would later be known as fibromyalgia, describing it as "rheumatism with painful, hard places" that could be felt in many locations on the body. He characterized the condition as muskelschwiele (muscle callus).

According to its preface, Yarrell's British Birds was first published "in thirty-seven parts of three sheets each, at intervals of two months; the first Part was issued in July 1837 and the last in May 1843. The sheets were then collected into two volumes, with the addition of "many occurrences of rare birds and of some that were even new to Britain". The additional birds were listed and briefly described in the Preface and "the new subjects have been engraved on single leaves, so paged, that the bookbinder may insert these separate leaves among the birds of the genus to which each respectively belongs."

British Birds was illustrated with drawings by Alexander Fussell. Yarrell thanked him for "nearly five hundred of the drawings on wood here employed". The artist of the remaining drawings (the title-page asserts there are 520 in the book) is not identified. Yarrell also thanked John Thompson and his sons for the "very long series of engravings" of the drawings,

At the time of its release, Yarrell's Birds was considered the best work on the subject both scientifically and artistically. "It quickly became the standard reference work for a generation of British ornithologists, replacing Thomas Bewick's book of the same name through its increased scientific accuracy, but following Bewick in its mixture of scientific data, accurate illustrations, detailed descriptions and varied anecdotes, as well as in the use of small 'tail-piece' engravings at the ends of articles. This made the book attractive to the public as well as to specialists. Yarrell, a newsagent without university education, corresponded widely with eminent naturalists including Carl Linnaeus, Coenraad Jacob Temminck and Thomas Pennant to collect accurate information on the hundreds of species illustrated in the work" (Wikipedia article on A History of British Birds, accessed 6-2020).

Fifty copies were issued on large paper.

One of the first attempts to outline criteria through which to determine the legitimacy of an insanity plea. The was resolved later in 1843 with the establishment of the M'Naghten Rules, (McNaghten) which this work undoubtedly influenced,  Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Dorothea Dix played an instrumental role in the founding or expansion of more than 30 hospitals for the treatment of the mentally ill in various U.S. states. This was probably the first of her many publications advocating for the humane treatment of the mentally ill. Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

“In this book, there are many transverse section figures from the origin of the 2nd cervical nerve pair up to the pons. Stilling aimed to reveal the difference between the spinal cord and medulla oblongata by presenting in detail the anatomical structures in his figures” (Demircubuk, Ibrahim, et al. “The Seminal Contributions of Benedict Stilling (1810–1879) to Neuroanatomy.” Child’s Nervous System. SpringerLink, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 31 Mar. 2022 (web).

First translation of the Suśruta Samhitā into Latin, and the first publication of this text in the West. Suśruta is said to have lived in the 6th or 5th centuries, BCE. The principal medical contribution of the ancient Hindus was in the field of surgery, and the greatest early Hindu surgeon was Suśruta, a quasi-legendary character about whose dates there is some confusion. His collection, or "Samhitā," is one of the two foundation works of ancient Indian medicine, the other being the Charaka Samhitā, a work devoted to medicine.

The Suśruta Samhitā includes the earliest description of plastic surgery; this is contained in chapter XVI of the first volume, which is devoted to the repair of torn earlobes and damaged noses, and includes the first recorded description of the pedicle flap method, subsequently named the "Indian" method. Suśruta is also credited with the description of 127 surgical instruments, and his descriptions of the operative techniques for abscesses, lithotomy, amputation, treatment of fractures and dislocations, hernia reduction and removal of foreign bodies were especially useful.

"The Suśruta-samhitā, in its extant form, in 184 chapters contains descriptions of 1,120 illnesses, 700 medicinal plants, 64 preparations from mineral sources and 57 preparations based on animal sources. The text discusses surgical techniques of making incisions, probing, extraction of foreign bodies, alkali and thermal cauterization, tooth extraction, excisions, and trocars for draining abscess, draining hydrocele and ascitic fluid, removal of the prostate gland, urethral stricture dilatation, vesicolithotomy, hernia surgery, caesarian section, management of haemorrhoids, fistulae, laparotomy and management of intestinal obstruction, perforated intestines and accidental perforation of the abdomen with protrusion of omentum and the principles of fracture management, viz., traction, manipulation, apposition and stabilization including some measures of rehabilitation and fitting of prosthetic. It enumerates six types of dislocations, twelve varieties of fractures, and classification of the bones and their reaction to the injuries, and gives a classification of eye diseases including cataract surgery" (Wikipedia article on Sushruta, accessed 05-2017).

The Sanskrit text was published as: Suśruta Samhita. The system of Hindu medicine taught by Dhanwantari. Compiled by Suśruta. Edited by Pandit-Kulapati Jibananda Vidyasagara. 5th ed. Calcutta: Vidyasagara, Pandit-Kulapati Jibananda Vidyasagara, 1909.

Remak was first to describe the intrinsic ganglia of the heart.

Proof of the indispensability of bile to digestion.

Pettenkofer’s test for bile. Previously there had been no means of recognizing the presence of the bile salts.

Sydenham has been called the “Father of English Medicine”. His reputation rests on his first-hand accounts of such conditions as the malarial fevers of his times, gout, scarlatina, measles, etc. A better edition of the above (editio altera) appeared in 1846. The original work, printed in 1685, is called editio altera; although no earlier edition is known to exist. An edition of Sydenham’s Opuscula was published in Amsterdam, 1683. See K. Dewhurst’s Dr Thomas Sydenham, his life and original writings., London, Wellcome Institute, 1966. Digital facsimile of the 1844 edition from the Internet Archive at this link; of the 1846 edition from the Hathi Trust at this link.

Discovery of amyl nitrite.

Lathyrism, a disease occuring in India, and parts of Africa, was known to Hippocrates. Sleeman, an Indian official and major general who presided over the suppression of Thuggee, had no special knowledge of medicine, but gave the first detailed account of lathyrism in vol. 1. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Includes a description of “Bruch’s membrane” of the choroid.

First removal of a laryngeal polyp.

This outspoken statement of a belief in evolution, published anonymously to protect Chambers’s reputation as a publisher, anticipated Darwin’s Origin by 16 years and generally prepared the public for Darwin’s theories. For a scientific book in the Victorian era, it became a sensational best seller. Authorship was not revealed until the 12th edition (1884) 13 years after Chambers’s death. Facsimile reprint, Leicester, Univ. Press, 1969. See M. Millhauser, Just before Darwin: Robert Chambers and ‘Vestiges’, Middletown, Wesleyan University Press, [1959].

First adequate description of pneumopericardium.

Gruby discovered a fungus, Trichophyton tonsurans, in ringworm of the scalp.

First description of pemphigus foliaceus, “Cazenave’s disease”. The article is unsigned.

First intestinal resection for cancer.

First esophagotomy for relief of stricture of the esophagus.

Malgaigne’s two-flap method for repair of cleft lip. English translation by R. Ivy in No. 5768.2.

Mirault modified Malgaigne’s technique for cleft lip repair by discarding the medial flap and bringing the lateral flap of mucosa across. Abridged English translation by R. Ivy in No. 5768.2.

Henderson, professor of pathology at Edinburgh, gave a good account of relapsing fever seen during the epidemic in 1843. He was one of the first to differentiate it from typhus.

Nélaton was a great teacher and operator at the Hôpital St. Louis. He invented several surgical instruments. The description of “Nélaton’s tumor” of bone appears in vol.. 2, p. 46,  and on p. 441, “Nélaton’s line”.

Pancoast was Professor of Anatomy and Surgery at Jefferson Medical College. He was a fine operator and devised a number of new surgical operations and instruments. This was work contains 80 fine lithographed plates, and among its important contributions was the first extensive section on plastic surgery in an American surgical textbook. A relatively small number of copies were issued with the plates colored by hand. See No. 5746.2.

Donne's and Foucault's work was the first biomedical textbook to be illustrated with images made from photomicrographs, in this case daguerreotypes of blood cells. Among its noteworthy images are the first microphotographs of human blood cells and platelets, and the first photographic illustration of Trichomonas vaginalis, the protozoon responsible for vaginal infections, which Donné had discovered in 1836. The text volume of the Cours contains the first description of the microscopic appearance of leukemia, which Donné had observed in blood taken from both an autopsy and a living patient. His observations mark the first time that leukemia was linked with abnormal blood pathology. Foucault, who later achieved fame as a physicist, initally studied medicine, which he abandoned for physics due to an extreme fear of blood. Foucault initially directed his attention to the improvement of Louis Daguerre's photographic processes. For three years he was experimental assistant to Donné in his course of lectures on microscopy.

The presence of fluorine in fossil bones was first reported in 1803 by Italian chemist Domenico Morichini, and by the 1840s scientists had determined that (a) fluorine occurs in teeth and bone; (b) the fluorine content of teeth and bones is variable; and (c) the fluorine content of fossil teeth and bone is higher than that of fresh tissues. Middleton’s article discusses the possiblity of fluorine dating: “Having lately devoted some time and attention to the analyses of bones, both recent and fossil, I trust some of the results at which I have arrived may not be unacceptable . . . I took up the subject with the view of ascertaining, if possible, the law by which fluoride of calcium becomes augmented or developed in fossil bones, as, should this be established, an important step would, I conceived, be thereby made towards the ascertainment of geological time” (p. 285). Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Book VI is entirely devoted to operative surgery. Adams himself says that it “contains the most complete system of operative surgery which has come down to us from ancient times”. Book IV contains much information on surgical diseases. The work also includes the first clear description of lead poisoning. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Significantly expanded second edition, in two parts (Calcutta: Thacker & Co., 1848).  Digital facsimile of the 1848 edition from the Internet Archive at this link.

Morton argued that blacks and whites had been racially distinct since the Egyptian First Dynasty and drew the following conclusions, long since debunked:

"Conclusions.

"1. The valley of the Nile, both in Egypt and in Nubia, was originally peopled by a branch of the Caucasian race.

"2. These primeval people, since called Egyptians, were the Mizairmites of Scripture, the poster ity of Ham, and directly affiliated with the Libyan family of nations.

"3. In their physical character the Egyptians were intermediate between the indo-European and Semitic races.

..."8. Negroes were numerous in Egypt, but their social position in ancient times was the same as it now is, that of servants and slaves" (pp. 65-66).

The publication of Chadwick's 1842 Report inspired the creation in 1843 of the Royal Commission for Inquiry into the State of Large Towns and Populous Districts, in which Chadwick once again played a leading role, drafting the major part of the Commission's first report and supplying the administrative and operational proposals for the second. The Commission's two reports revealed the unhealthy sanitary and social conditions prevailing among the towns and proposed a number of recommendations to be embodied in new legislation, the most important being a proposal to grant the national government power to supervise the execution of all general measures for regulating the sanitary condition of larger urban communities.

Gay, a French botanist, was commissioned in 1830 by the government of Chile to carry out a thorough scientific survey of the country, and to produce a detailed description of its geography, geology and natural history. To accomplish this, Gay traveled from province to province for 11 years. In 1839 he was persuaded to add political history to the project, but only the section of the work covering the history of Chile up to the time of the discovery and conquest are his work; later, when he became too busy writing the volumes on natural history, the task of writing the political history was handed over to Francisco de Paula Noriega. The five volumes of history covering the discovery to 1810 constitute the first reasonably complete picture of Chilean history written with modern historiographical methodology. The text is divided as follows: Historia, 8 vols.; Documentos, 2 vols.; Agricultura, 2 vols.; Botánica, 8 vols.; and Zoología, 8 vols. (Richard Ramer).

Digital facsimile from the Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

The United States Exploring Expedition was the first United States scientific expedition by sea. Wilkes' six ships ranged from Tierra del Fuego, Chile, and Peru, to Samoa, Fiji, Tahiti, Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, and Singapore. Two of its most notable achievements were the extensive survey of the American northwest coast and the exploration of some 1500 miles of the Antarctic coast, proving the existence of the seventh continent- Antarctica. Equally important, the Expedition collected and described natural history specimens from all parts of the globe - specimens that eventually came to the fledgling Smithsonian Institution, making it the National Museum of the United States. 

"With the help of the expedition's scientists, derisively called "clam diggers" and "bug catchers" by navy crew members, 280 islands, mostly in the Pacific, were explored, and over 800 miles of Oregon were mapped. Of no less importance, over 60,000 plant and bird specimens were collected. A staggering amount of data and specimens were collected during the expedition, including the seeds of 648 species, which were later traded, planted, and sent throughout the country. Dried specimens were sent to the National Herbarium, now a part of the Smithsonian Institution. There were also 254 live plants, which mostly came from the home stretch of the journey, that were placed in a newly constructed greenhouse in 1850, which later became the United States Botanic Garden" (Wikipedia article on United States Exploring Expedition, accessed 02-2018).

The official edition was limited to 100 copies. However, Wilkes, secured copyright for his Narrative of the expedition, under which privilege he published several editions of that part of the reports. Later, also, the authors themselves, or publishers who were willing to undertake it, were allowed to issue an additional 150 copies of the various reports, and under this arrangement, from 100 to 150 copies of most of the volumes were published in addition to the 100 copies provided for under act of Congress of Aug. 26, 1842, which provided: "That there shall be published ... an account of the discoveries made by the Exploring Expedition under the command of Lieutenant Wilkes ... which account shall be ... published in a form similar to the voyage of the Astrolabe, lately published by the government of France."

Digital facsimiles of the 1845 printing of the Narrative plus all the remaining supplementary scientific volumes (23 vols. in all, completed in 1874) from the Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

The first medical text exclusively devoted to sexuality, though Kaan's views reflected religious, and other prejudices of the time. Digital facsimile of the 1844 edition from staatsbibliothek-berlin.de at this link.

Translated into English by Melissa Haynes, edited by Benjamin Kahan, as Heinrich Kaan's "Psychopathia Sexualis" (1844). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2016.  "Heinrich Kaan's fascinating work—part medical treatise, part sexual taxonomy, part activist statement, and part anti-onanist tract—takes us back to the origins of sexology. He links the sexual instinct to the imagination for the first time, creating what Foucault called "a unified field of sexual abnormality." Kaan's taxonomy consists of six sexual aberrations: masturbation, pederasty, lesbian love, necrophilia, bestiality, and the violation of statues. Kaan not only inaugurated the field of sexology, but played a significant role in the regimes of knowledge production and discipline about psychiatric and sexual subjects. As Benjamin Kahan argues in his Introduction, Kaan's text crucially enables us to see how homosexuality replaced masturbation as the central concern of Euro-American sexual regulation...." (publisher).

The first medical treatise published in Missouri and the first medical treatise published west of the Mississippi River.

"John Sappington provided medical services, was a financial lender, and imported and exported goods to the Missouri area. He established two stores near Arrow Rock that sold goods, loaned money, processed salt, and milled lumber.^[3] Once he had achieved financial success, Sappington was able to be more experimental with his medical practice. He focused his energy on the bark of the cinchona tree, the substance used to create quinine. Malaria, scarlet fever, yellow fever, and influenza, were prominent along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. Sappington developed a preventative pill using quinine that was soon in demand across the country. It was marketed as an anti-fever pill, but Sappington also instructed some of his relatives to take the pills to prevent malaria.^[3] Most physicians were still treating malaria by bloodletting the patient and administering calomel.^[1] Sappington’s pill to prevent malaria—and also used to cure malaria—was controversial due to its novelty and unfamiliarity.^[4] The pill remained in high demand, however, and many other physicians began to develop their own anti-malaria pills after Sappington published the formula in his medical treatise, “Theory and Treatment of Fevers.”^[5] He is often regarded as the first physician to successfully and effectively use quinine to treat malaria.^[4] "(Wikipedia article on John Sappington, accessed 04-2018).

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

The first book on child neurology. Unusual for a medical book of this type, it includes a lithographed frontispiece, a lithographed title page, and four hand-colored plates.

Kobelt provided the first comprehensive and accurate description of the function of the clitoris.Digital facsimile from digi.ub.uni-heidelberg at this link.

Becquerel and Rodier analyzed the blood components present in various diseases including typhoid fever, tuberculosis, Bright’s disease, anemia, heart disease and syphilis, as well as in pregnancy and childbirth. Their statistical analyses of blood’s iron, fibrin and ash content were still being referred well into the 20^th century.

Forster was the naturalist on James Cook's second Pacific voyage, during which he was accompanied by his son Georg. 

His Descriptiones animalium was completed within a month of returning to England with Cook, but remained unpublished until it was  edited by Hinrich Lichtenstein and published in 1844. It contains some very detailed descriptions of the Cape animals, Promontorium Bonae Spei (pp. 362–410), also a listing of the animals of Madeira and Ascension.

"From a scientific point of view, Forster’s most important work would have been the Descriptiones animalium - but these were only rediscovered and published in 1844 by Hinrich Lichtenstein (1780–1857), the director of the Berlin Natural History Museum. The Descriptiones were a zoological survey and description of the animal species discovered on the world voyage with Cook. In the manuscript, Forster had ordered the animals according to their geographical origin, and described them using the Linnaean method. As the manuscript remained unpublished during his lifetime, Forster could not reap the fruits of his labor and even had to watch other naturalists such as Johann Friedrich Gmelin and John Latham claim the first descriptions of animals he had actually already recorded“ (Mariss, Johann Reinhold Forster and the making of Natural History of Cook’s Second voyage …. 2019, 25).

Digital facsimile from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

"From the seventeenth century there were shifts in some of the basic assumptions about how the brain and mind functioned, and there are some useful markers along the way to an era of more systematic studies. Descartes is the most convenient base. He had earlier firmly separated mind and matter in his philosophy, and is still chiefly known for that. But at the end of his life (1649) he tried to reconcile them by the device of a specific 'seat of the soul' in the brain through which information passed between brain and mind. Symmetry of the operation of the hemispheres was assumed. This theory had currency into the eighteenth century. At the end of that century Franz Gall of Austria and France was assigning discrete faculties to numerous parts of the brain on no strong evidence, and nothing the double form of the brain, without claiming independent action of the hemispheres. Hewett Watson in 1836 discussed duality more directly than had been the case before, and Arthur Wigan in 1844 asserted the duality of the mind roundly and treated the two hemispheres, not consistently, as two independent brains. He was not satisfied with independence, however, and tried various ways of allowing for joint action by the two sides of the brain, as well as for substitution, with one side having the power to act on behalf of both in cases of disease or injury. He also considered that one hemisphere, usually the left, was generally dominant; but he did not see the two hemispheres as differently constituted" (From the Abstract of B. Clarke, "Arthur Wigan and The Duality of the Mind," Psychol Med Monogr Suppl. 1987,11, 1-52.) Digital facsimile the 1844 edition from Google Books at this link.

Digital facsimile from wellcomecollection.org at this link.

"Life in the Sickroom is one of many first-hand accounts of the experience of being ill written by an invalid.  Martineau was ill for six years, but she found taking on the identity of an invalid a reprieve from the stresses of daily life.  What is interesting about her account, then, is that rather than depicting the difficulties of being ill, she portrays life in the sickroom as a time of rest and reflection, a welcome repose that can lead to time for thought and greater insight. Nor was she unusual in this respect.  Miriam Bailin points out that many Victorians valued illness for the rest and repose it could offer from the stresses of daily life, and that it is perhaps not surprising that the cult of the invalid developed in the wake of the Industrial revolution alongside the “coexistent imperatives of self-discipline, will-power and industriousness” (12). 

Martineau dedicates her work to fellow-invalids whom she imagines will be sympathetic to her experiences in the sickroom, and to her claim that suffering can afford invalids greater insight, especially about the transience of this world. This type of dedication is typical of Victorian writing about invalidism.  As Maria Frawley points out, many Victorian invalids who wrote first-person narratives about their experiences portrayed themselves as lonely sufferers seeking from their “own bed of affliction to console others, envisioned as similarly confined to their sickrooms and in need of solace” (11).  In the following two excerpts, from the chapters on “Life to the Invalid” and the “Power of Ideas in the Sick-Room,” Martineau reflects on invalid’s heightened ability to grasp truisms that may seem farther off to the healthy:  that wealth and status are unimportant, and that it matters less what we do than what we are" (https://archive.org/stream/lifeinsickroome01martgoog#page/n8/mode/2up, accessed 4-2020).

Digital facsimile of the second edition (1844) from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

Probably the first comprehensive and comprehensively illustrated general treatise on dentistry published in the United States.
It is prefaced with a rather comprehensive historical summary.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

The first original pharmacopoeia printed in the Ottoman Empire, with an original text by the Austrian physician Karl Ambros Bernard. The text of this pharmacopeia was in French and Latin, accompanied by Italian terms. The book was printed for the use of the Ottoman Army as part of a project by the sultan to reorganize the army based upon European models.
The printer, Henri Cayol, established the first lithographic press in Istanbul in 1831. However, he printed this work by letterpress, since Cayol used lithography for Ottoman characters only.

(Thanks to Antiquariat Daša Pahor for this reference.)

Digital facsimile from BnF Gallica at this link.

The author described himself as "Préparateur des pièces artificielles d'anatomie pathologique, a la Faculté de Médecine de Paris."
Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

One of the earliest atlases of pathological histology. Lebert’s work played an important role in introducing the cellular idea of pathology, laying the groundwork for Virchow’s theories.

The discovery of the inhibitory power of the vagus. Also published in Wagner’s Handwörterbuch der Physiologie, 1846, 3, 45-51. Partial translation in J. F. Fulton’s Selected readings in the history of physiology, 2nd ed., 1966. p.296.

Buchanan extracted the fibrin ferment of blood. He showed that it was capable of coagulating blood and other serous fluids not in themselves coagulable.

“Huxley’s layer” and “membrane” of the root sheath of hair follicles.

Isolation of an active principle in digitalis, amorphous digitalin, more potent than the plant itself.

In his second paper on population growth Verhulst introduced the term, logistic. He modified his equation so its early part is exponential and becomes logistic only after a definite length of time. Verhulst published a second paper on this subject: Deuxième mémoire sur la loi d’accroissement de la population. Mem. Acad. Roy. Belg., 1847, 20, 1-32.

Moreau's experments may have been the first medical experiments with a psychotropic agent in the treatment of mental illness. English translation by G. J. Barnett as Hashish and mental illness (New York: Raven Press, 1973).

An important description of colour phenomena in the fundus oculi. This paper won for Kussmaul the Karl Friedrich Medal of the University of Heidelberg.

An introduction to the then little-known subject of catoptrics.

French translation, 1847; English translation as The plague of lust, being a history of venereal disease in classical antiquity, and including: Detailed investigations into the cult of Venus, and phallic worship, brothels, the nousos thelēia (Femine disease) of the Scythians, Paederastia, and sexual perversions amongst the ancients, as contributions towards the exact interpretation of their writings. Translated from the Sixth (unabridged) German edition by An Oxford M.A. 2 vols. (Paris: Charles Carrington, 1901). Digital facsimile of the 1839 edition from the Hathi Trust at this link; of the 1901 English translation at this link.

John Goodsir’s paper on “Centres of nutrition” anticipates to a certain extent the cell doctrine afterwards developed by Virchow (see No. 2299). Virchow dedicated the first edition of his Cellularpathologie to Goodsir. Goodsir’s paper on the bone-forming properties of certain corpuscles found within osseous tissue represent the foundation of the study of osteogenesis, as distinct from descriptive osteology.

Harry Goodsir, brother of John Goodsir, "served as surgeon and naturalist on the ill-fated Franklin expedition. His body was never found, but forensic studies in 2009 on skeletal remains earlier recovered from King William Island in Canada suggest that they may be those of Harry Goodsir" (Wikipedia article on Harry Goodsir).

First definite description of leukemia as a blood disorder; a case under the care of Sir R. Christison but reported by Bennett. On p. 400 of the same journal is a report of a case by D. Craigie, referring to a patient seen in 1841 but not recognized as leukemia until Craigie heard of Bennett’s case in the same hospital. Bennett published a monograph on leucocythemia in 1852, in which he included the first illustrations of the microscopic appearance of the blood in leukemia.

Only six weeks after Bennett, Virchow independently published a report on the necropsy of a case of leukemia. He gave the condition its present name. For translation, see Major, Classic descriptions of disease, 3rd. ed., 1945, p. 510.

Rynd, an Irish physician, invented the hollow needle used in hypodermic syringes. The description of his instrument is given in Dublin Quart. J. med. Sci., 1861, 32, 13.

Budd was Professor of Medicine at King’s College, London. Section III of the above book includes a description of that form of cirrhosis to which the name “Budd’s disease” has been applied. In the second edition, 1852, p. 484, Fasciolopsis buski, the fluke causing fasciolopsiasis, is described. George Busk (1807-1886) found specimens in the liver at necropsy and drew Budd’s attention to them.

Hebra’s classification of skin diseases was based upon their pathological anatomy.

First comprehensive American work on dermatology.

Buck’s operation, “one of the more spectacular surgical feats by an American surgeon in the first half of the nineteenth century” (Rutkow). The paper is reprinted in Med. Classics, 1939, 3, 791-99.

Durlacher, surgeon chiropodist to Queen Victoria, gave the first description of anterior metatarsalgia (p. 52), to which the name “Morton’s metatarsalgia” has been given (see No. 4341). Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Maisonneuve introduced a hair catheter.

Mercier introduced the coudé catheter in 1836 and the bicoudé about 1841.

Feuchtersleben introduced the terms psychosis, psychiatrics, and psychopathology. The book includes a short history of psychiatry. English translation, Sydenham Society, 1847.

Griesinger put an end to the moralistic theory of insanity as advanced by Heinroth. He was the first in Germany to abandon violence in the treatment of the insane; his book remained an authority on the subject for 30 years. English translation, London, 1867.

Fritze and Reich studied under Dieffenbach. This is the first extensively illustrated general treatise on plastic surgery published in Europe. Some copies have the plates hand-colored.

Siebold classified the hookworm as belonging to the Strongyloidae (pp. 220-21).

Dieffenbach’s most comprehensive work, covering in addition to reconstructive procedures, virtually all other types of procedures including amputations, paracentesis, laparotomy, hysterectomy, dental extractions, etc.

Von Brücke studied the luminosity of the eye in animals, and by passing a tube through a candle flame, was able to see the fundus. See also the same journal, 1847, 225-27.

First description of corneal opacity.

Bennet was the first to differentiate between benign and malignant uterine tumors.

Biographies of American physicians who died after publication of Thacher (No. 6710). Reprint, New York, Milford House, 1967.