Clinical Lectures on Diseases of the Nervous System.

inscribed presentation copy

First collected edition, presentation copy inscribed by the author on the verso of the front free endpaper, 'To Mrs. Denton Cardew, to whose enterprise much of this volume is due, from the Author'. The identity of the recipient is unclear.

Sir William Gowers (1845-1915) is considered one of the greatest clinical neurologists of all time. He attended Oxford and then completed his medical training under William Jenner at University College Hospital in London, acquiring his knowledge of the nervous system 'by the meticulous observation of clinical phenomena and of the pathological changes underlying them'. Gowers published many of the earliest descriptions of neurological disorders such as muscular dystrophy, and these are 'now regarded as classics'. His A Manual of Diseases of the Nervous System (1886–8) became known as 'the Bible of neurology', and he 'achieved an international reputation' as a 'fluent and lucid lecturer and a bold and incisive clinical teacher' (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography).

Twenty lectures and papers are collected in this volume, eighteen of them originally published in medical journals. They include pieces on the principles of diagnosis, mistaken diagnosis, syphilis, facial paralysis, locomotor ataxy, infantile epilepsy, neuralgia, and lead palsy, among others.

First collected edition, presentation copy inscribed by the author on the verso of the front free endpaper; 8vo; small Arts & Crafts style book ticket, contents clean; original dark green morocco patterned boards, titles to spine gilt, brown coated endpapers, cloth lightly rubbed with a little wear at the extremities, spine darkened, small bump to edge of upper board, very good condition; 279 pp.