Illustrated with plates. In two volumes.
London, for E. Cox & Burwood, Neely, and Jones, 1812
The beginnings of modern wound care. Second edition of this foundational work in medicine, originally published in 1794, in contemporary prize binding from the School of Medicine and Surgery (presumably at the University of Birmingham), awarded to George Elkington as third prize for anatomy in 1829. It seems that Elkington was the first in a family of Birmingham physicians, as his grandson George Elkington's Royal College of Surgeons obituary states that 'the Elkington family had practised medicine in Birmingham since the 1830's'.
Surgeon John Hunter (1728-1793) based this volume on his two years' service with the British expedition to Belle Isle off the French coast in the 1760s, during which he had 'ample opportunity to experience the surgery of gunshot wounds at first hand'. It is 'a work of great magnitude, easily the largest work by a British surgeon to date. His studies on inflammation in particular are fundamental for pathology, as there had been little understanding of the subject before his time. He classified inflammation into three types and was the first to assess and describe three essential factors of wound pathology: first, that an external agent in the air, and not the air itself, is a factor in wound inflammation; second, that a good blood supply is essential in maintaining the natural defences of the body; and third, that the presence of mortified tissue in a deep wound prevents healing and promotes the onset of sepsis. Hunter was acknowledged by Rudolf Virchow as the founder of experimental and surgical pathology... He was also outstanding among eighteenth-century surgeons for orthopedic surgery, and he performed epoch-making studies of the surgical diseases of the vascular system' (Norman, The Grolier Club, One Hundred Books Famous in Medicine 52).
Second edition; 2 vols, 8vo (21 x 12.5cm); 8 engraved plates, plate I bound in upside down, titles on stubs, a little spotting and offsetting to contents; contemporary brown calf prize binding, spine gilt in compartments with elaborate blind tools, red morocco labels to spines and upper boards, elaborate blind roll and corner-pieces to boards, marbled endpapers and edges, bookseller's ticket of R. Peart, Birmingham to each front pastedown, bindings rubbed with a few small worn spots at the tips, loss from one of the spine labels, spines faded, very good condition; 487 & 510pp.
Grolier Club, One Hundred Books Famous in Medicine 52, Hook & Norman, Norman Library of Science and Medicine 1122.
Surgeon John Hunter (1728-1793) based this volume on his two years' service with the British expedition to Belle Isle off the French coast in the 1760s, during which he had 'ample opportunity to experience the surgery of gunshot wounds at first hand'. It is 'a work of great magnitude, easily the largest work by a British surgeon to date. His studies on inflammation in particular are fundamental for pathology, as there had been little understanding of the subject before his time. He classified inflammation into three types and was the first to assess and describe three essential factors of wound pathology: first, that an external agent in the air, and not the air itself, is a factor in wound inflammation; second, that a good blood supply is essential in maintaining the natural defences of the body; and third, that the presence of mortified tissue in a deep wound prevents healing and promotes the onset of sepsis. Hunter was acknowledged by Rudolf Virchow as the founder of experimental and surgical pathology... He was also outstanding among eighteenth-century surgeons for orthopedic surgery, and he performed epoch-making studies of the surgical diseases of the vascular system' (Norman, The Grolier Club, One Hundred Books Famous in Medicine 52).
Second edition; 2 vols, 8vo (21 x 12.5cm); 8 engraved plates, plate I bound in upside down, titles on stubs, a little spotting and offsetting to contents; contemporary brown calf prize binding, spine gilt in compartments with elaborate blind tools, red morocco labels to spines and upper boards, elaborate blind roll and corner-pieces to boards, marbled endpapers and edges, bookseller's ticket of R. Peart, Birmingham to each front pastedown, bindings rubbed with a few small worn spots at the tips, loss from one of the spine labels, spines faded, very good condition; 487 & 510pp.
Grolier Club, One Hundred Books Famous in Medicine 52, Hook & Norman, Norman Library of Science and Medicine 1122.
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