This work was Banjamin Franklin's personal favorite of the works printed by him, and is one of the finest books to emanate from a Colonial American press. It was the first classical text printed in North America, and the translation was by Franklin's friend James Logan. The work's genesis was in in the winter of 1741-2, when a trial sheet was sent to Logan, but more pressing printing work (in particular, the many religious pamphlets of 1743-4) obtruded. With the arrival from London of David Hall, Franklin had leisure to complete the book, which went on sale in mid-March, 1744. It contains an introduction by Franklin entitled, "The printer to the reader." Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

A definitive history of the development of knowledge on muscle biochemistry; valuable bibliography.

Order of authorship in the original paper: Taylor, Makunde, McGarry.... The authors treated infection by the parasitic worm Wuchereria bancrofti, cause of elephantiasis (lymphatic filariasis), by killing the Wolbachia bacteria inside the worm with the antibiotic doxycycline. Since the worm requires the Wolbachia (a symbiont) to live, killing the Wolbachia bacteria eliminates the worm and cures the disease.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)

First published as The psychology of Shakespeare, London, 1859.

Prusiner discovered prions, the agent causing scrapie in sheep and goats, mad cow disease, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.

The first comparison of medical systems of the Ancient Near East and the Greek and Roman world. The authors treat early medicine in Babylonia, Egypt, the Minoan and Mycenean world; later medicine in Hippocrates, Galen, Aelius Aristides, Vindicianus, the Talmud, focusing on the degree of "rationality" or "irrationality" in the various ways of medical thought and treatment.

Reproduction of some of the texts produced at the School of Salerno. In all, it is believed that the total output from the School numbered 100 texts, including the famous poem Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum, or Flos Medicae. Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

The French humanist physician Foës produced the first Greek & Latin edition of the complete extant works of Hippocrates. His edition was the most significant before that of Littré.

Jean de Joinville was probably the first, about 1250, to describe scurvy; Vasco da Gama noted its occurrence at sea, and Jacques Cartier mentioned it. Ronsse gave an early medical account describing how sailors cured themselves by eating oranges and lemons as soon as they reached the coast of Spain. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Filtration of the trachoma agent, Chlamydia trachomatis. With L. Blaisot and A. Cuénod.

The most popular and influential medical work by Maimonides, the most famous of early Jewish physician/philosophers. This is a collection of about 1500 aphorisms derived from Galen, and divided into 24 treatises. In the 25th and final treatise Maimonides discusses Galen’s teleological ideas from the Biblical standpoint. See also No. 53. The collection also includes translations of works by Mesue and Hippocrates by Gerard of Cremona, and a translation of Rhazes by Aegidius Lusitanus (Aegidius de Scalabis).  ISTC no. im00077000. Digital facsimile from the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek at this link.

A comprehensive study by a physician of the numerous tracings and impressions of mutilated hands that appear in prehistoric painted caves or parietal art.

Discovery of vitamin B₅, probably identical with nicotinic acid. With H. W. Kinnersley and R. A. Peters.

English translation as Self-mastery through conscious autosuggestion, New York: Markan Publishing Co., 1922. Digital facsimile of the English translation from the Internet Archive at this link.

"The Liber Floridus (1121), composed, written and illustrated by Canon Lambert of Saint-Omer, is the earliest illustrated encyclopedic compilation of the Latin West. Its autograph (Ghent, University Library, MS 92), a masterpiece of Romanesque book art and one of the most complicated manuscripts ever made, has been studied by the author for almost half a century. The present book is the culmination of this research and provides a detailed codicological and textual analysis, showing how this wonderful book was put together and which are the hidden ideas Lambert sought to develop in its hundreds of texts and pictures dealing with astronomy, geography, natural history, history, religion and countless other subjects" (publisher).

http://www.sites.hps.cam.ac.uk/visibleembryos/index.html

Starting with Trotula, this study concerns medieval and early modern material up to about 1600.

Translated into English by Judith Braddock and Brian Pike as The history of syphilis (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992).

Bassi preceded Louis Pasteur in the discovery that microorganisms can be the cause of disease (the germ theory of disease). He discovered that the muscardine disease of silkworms--a disease that was destroying the silk industry--was caused by a living, very small, parasitic organism, a fungus that would be named eventually Beauveria bassiana in his honor. To cure and prevent the disease Bassini recommended the use of disinfectants, separating the rows of feeding caterpillars, isolating and destroying infected caterpillars, and keeping the farms clean.

In demonstrating the parasitic nature of the muscardine disease of silkworms, Bassi also founded the doctrine of pathogenic microorganisms. His ideas inspired Henle (1840; No. 2533).

Forms Heft 5 of K. Sudhoff & G. Sticker: Zur historischen Biologie der Krankheitserreger.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.  Selections were translated , with annotations by T. C. Minor as The Evil that has been said of doctors: Extracts from early writers. (Cincinnati: Reprint from the Lancet-Clinic, 1889). Digital facsimile of the translation from the Internet Archive at this link.

“Reclus’s disease”. Reclus was professor of surgery in Paris; he left a classic description of chronic cystic mastitis.

First important treatise on parotid tumors.

The outstanding textbook of the time. Mauriceau, leading obstetrician of his day, introduced the practice of delivering his patients in bed instead of in the obstetrical chair. It was to Mauriceau that Hugh Chamberlen attempted to sell the secret of his forceps; Chamberlen translated the Traité into English in 1672. This book established obstetrics as a science.

In his important monograph on disorders of the cardiovascular system, Huchard was apparently the first to use the designation “Stokes–Adams disease”.

English translation entitled, Diseases in the ancient Greek world, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1989.

Esquirol succeeded Pinel at the Salpêtrière, and was the first lecturer on psychiatry. After Pinel he was a founder of the French School. This is the first modern textbook on psychiatry. It is notable for its striking illustrations of the insane. Vol. 2, p. 264 contains a classic description of paresis. Esquirol regarded general paralysis as a complication of various forms of mental disorder. English translation, without the illustrations, Philadelphia, 1845.

An account of the work of the Rothschild Hospital at Berck-sur-Mer, where Calot specialized in the treatment of surgical tuberculosis in children.

The view is put forward by the writer that malarial infection was the cause of the decadence of the Greeks. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Confirmation of the work of Laveran.

Second edition, 1947-51.

Includes reprints of Perroncito’s earlier papers. He insisted on the parasitic origin of the disease as it occurred among the St. Gotthard tunnellers in 1880, and he introduced Felix mas as a vermifuge against hookworm.

Funk and Harrow obtained crude active male hormone extracts from male urine.

Mayo’s operation of partial gastrectomy. Mayo was co-founder of the Mayo Clinic.

Epstein-Barr virus as a cause of Burkitt’s lymphoma. With D. DeChairo and G. Miller.

Langhans noted the presence of giant cells in the lesions of Hodgkin’s disease.

"Malleable Anatomies offers an account of the early stages of the practice of anatomical modeling in mid-eighteenth-century Italy. It investigates the "mania" for anatomical displays that swept the Italian peninsula, and traces the fashioning of anatomical models as important social, cultural, and political as well as medical tools. Over the course of the eighteenth century, anatomical specimens offered particularly accurate insights into the inner body. Being colored, soft, malleable, and often life-size, they promised to foster anatomical knowledge for different audiences in a delightful way. But how did anatomical models and preparations inscribe and mediate bodily knowledge? How did they change the way in which anatomical knowledge was created and communicated? And how did they affect the lives of those involved in their production, display, viewing, and handling?" (publisher).

Includes (cap. XXXVI) an early account of typhus, morbus pulicaris. English translation in Major, Classic descriptions of disease, 3rd ed., Springfield: Charles C Thomas, 1945, p. 163.

The first comprehensive study of veterinary medicine, its practitioners and patients, in the medieval Islamic world.

The modern operation of total bilateral mammectomy, with transplantation of the nipple and areola, was especially developed by Dartigues.

“The fountainhead of the conservation movement” (Mumford). This is a comprehensive scientific account of humanity's enormous and often destructive impact on the physical world. Marsh warned of the dangers of the reckless misuse of land then endemic in the United States, using the ruined lands of the Mediterranean region as an example of America’s probable future, and called for a scientific program to restore the land. Reprint edited by David Lowenthal, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1965. Reprint of the 1965 edition with a foreward by William Cronon and a new introduction by David Lowenthal, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003. Digital facsimile of the 1864 edition from the Internet Archive at this link. Revised second edition retitled The earth as modified by human action (1874). Digital facsimile of the second edition from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

A study of the constitutional differences between man and woman.

Portraits and biographies, emphasizing genetic syndromes. Followed by the authors' The person behind the syndrome (1997).

Describes the case histories of some of Sacks's patients. The title comes from the case study of a man with visual agnosia.^[1]  The book "became the basis of an opera of the same name by Michael Nyman, which premiered in 1986.

"The book comprises twenty-four essays split into four sections, each dealing with a particular aspect of brain function such as deficits and excesses in the first two sections (with particular emphasis on the right hemisphere of the brain) while the third and fourth describe phenomenological manifestations with reference to spontaneous reminiscences, altered perceptions, and extraordinary qualities of mind found in mentally handicapped people."^{[2]" (Wikipedia)}

The first serious attempt by a biologist to evaluate the likelihood of life on other planets. Wallace concluded that the Earth was the only planet in the solar system that could possibly support life, mainly because it was the only one in which water could exist in the liquid phase. More controversially, Wallace maintained that it was unlikely that other stars in the galaxy could have planets with the necessary properties, as the existence of other galaxies had not yet been proved. 

Chapters on controversial government experimental programs in Senegal, in Germany under the Nazi regime, including in concentration camps and in aerospace research, and also the Tuskegee syphilis experiment in Tuskegee, Alabama.

The Anatomie Manchoue, a series of graphic illustrations taken from Western anatomical works, with notes in the Manchu-Tungus language. This was compiled under the supervision of Father Parrenin, a  French Jesuit working at the court of the Manchu Emperior K'ang Hsi (Kangxi). The manuscript reproduced and translated in this edition contained 90 illustrations; other surviving versions of this work (9 copies are known) may contain as many as 135 illustrations. The text was apparently intended only for consultation by members of the imperial household, and no attempts were made to disseminate this information to practioners outside the court.

Introduction of mandelic acid in the treatment of urinary infections.

Reproduces all the classic Japanese prints that concern the teeth or dentistry. By Nakahara, Yoshihisa Shindo, and Kuninori Homma. 

Hunter claimed that as a child he had been captured by the Cherokee before they came to Texas. He adopted the name of an English benefactor, John Dunn, and later added the name "Hunter" given by the Indians because of his prowess in the chase. Although he lived with the Cherokee until about 1816, he received a fairly good education and traveled considerably through the United States and England.  Chapter 14: "Residence, dress, painting, food, dseases, treatment of the sick, disposal of the dead, mournings, &c." Chapter 15: "Observations on the materia medica of the Indians." Chapter 16: "Observations on the Indian practice of surgery and medicine." Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

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

Ballantyne was a pioneer advocate of antenatal care. Volume 2, The Embryo,  is the most complete history of teratology in English, and among the best in any language. American edition, New York, 1905. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Knox, remembered because of his indiscreet association with the Edinburgh “resurrectionists”, was one of the best teachers of anatomy during the 19th century.

Sternberg, U. S. Surgeon General 1893-1902, was a pioneer bacteriologist. Independently of Pasteur he discovered the pneumococcus and was first in America to photograph the tubercle bacillus. He sent Walter Reed off to make his great discoveries regarding yellow fever.

The Society of American Bacteriologists appointed in 1920 a Committee on Characterization and Classification of Bacterial Types. Their reports were incorporated in the above Manual issued under the names of Bergey and his associates. The current edition of Bergey's manual of systematics of archaea and bacteria is published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. in Association with Bergey's Manual Trust.

Gowers was physician and Professor of Clinical Medicine at University College, London. He especially distinguished himself in the field of neurology, and the above set is his greatest work.Page 365 of vol. 1 includes the first description of local panatrophy. See also Rev. Neurol. Psychiat. (Edinb.), 1903, 1, 3-4. Gowers was also interested in stenography, advised his students to take down his lectures in shorthand, and founded the Society of Medical Phonographers. See No. 4751. Biography by Macdonald Critchley, London, 1949.

Mackenzie’s great reputation earned him the title of Father of British Laryngology. In 1863 he founded the Golden Square Throat Hospital, London, the first hospital in the world devoted solely to diseases of the throat; he was also the founder of the Journal of Laryngology. He was called to attend Crown Prince Frederick, afterwards Emperor Ferderick III of Germany, who suffered from, and succumbed to, a cancer of the larynx. Mackenzie was much maligned by a section of the German medical profession for refusing to agree to operation until biopsy had been performed. Three specimens proved negative and operation was delayed until too late. Mackenzie’s health was affected by his arduous duties on behalf of the Emperor and he died in 1892. The Manual was the standard work on the subject and had an important influence on the development of laryngology.

Jackson's most detailed exposition of anesthesia, including a summary of the early history of its discovery, written for American Civil War physicians and surgeons. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

The important studies on human embryos, originated by His, were carried on by his pupils, Keibel and Mall. This classic work written by American and German experts “has not yet been superceded” (D.S.B.). The set was published "simultaneously" in German and English, though the German edition of the second volume was dated 1911.

Digital facsimile of the 1864 printing from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Digital facsimile of the third, revised edition (1917) from the Internet Archive at this link.

". . . confined to those affections most intimately connected with gun-shot wounds and operations, as Shock, Tetanus, Hospital Gangrene, Pyaemia, &c." (from the preface). This is the only extensively illustrated Confederate surgical manual. Digital facsimile from Jefferson Digital Commons, Thomas Jefferson University, at this link.

Digital facsimile from the U.S. National Library of Medicine at this link.

Digital facsimile of the second edition (1862) from the Hathi Trust at this link. Notably in 1862 this small work written for Union surgeons was reprinted in Richmond, Virginia for the use of Confederate surgeons. The Richmond publisher J. W. Randolph, published an informative note on the source of this edition on the verso of the title page. It reads:

"In view of the great want of some convenient work on Military Surgery, we present a valuable little Treatise recently published by Dr. S.D. Gross, of Philadelphia. The book trade between the two sections of the continent having been interrupted, it has rendered it impossible for Dr. Gs publishers to furnish the work to the Southern Public. We avail ourselves of the copy recently published in the Southern Medical and Surgical Journal, Augusta, Geo."

Digital facsimile of the Richmond edition from the Internet Archive at this link.

The Training School for Nurses attached to Bellevue Hospital opened in 1873, the first school in United States run according to Florence Nightingale's nursing principles. Among other things, these principles called for strict rules of hygiene and cleanliness, as well as having a staff of trained nurses supervised by a woman who would be in charge of nursing services in the hospital. This was the first formal nursing textbook issued by a U.S. nursing school. The compiler appears to have been a female physician rather than a nurse. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Smith's concept was the teaching of surgery in a manner analogous to the teaching of anatomy--i.e. from a cadaver. His book organizes and explains the operations that student surgeons could practice on a cadaver.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

First important English treatise on hygiene.

Bucknill and Tuke were both distinguished neurologists, and advocates of no restraint in the institutional treatment of mental patients. Their book was for many years the standard English work on psychological medicine. Reprinted 1968.

"The subject of saddles and sore backs [of horses] is such an important one that I have considered the lectures delivered by me on the subject, in this school, might be of more permanent value if printed.

"Every officer, non-commissioned officer and man, should be instructed in saddle-fitting, to recognise the various causes of injury, and how to remedy them.

"I have divided my subject under four heads:-

"The Anatomy and Physiology of the Back.

"The Saddle

"Fitting the Saddle

"Sore Backs, how they are caused, prevented and remedied." (Introduction).

Through at least World War I horses were so strategic for the British Army that the author, Sir Frederick Smith, reached the rank of Major General as head of the veterinary corps.

Digital facsimile the 1897 edition from the Internet Archive at this link.

“First serious attempt by anyone in the English-speaking world to give a subject classification for medical literature” (Fulton). This was first published in volume 4 of Cyclopaedia of practical medicine, edited by Forbes, A. Tweedie, and J. Conolly, 4 vols., London, Sherwood, 1833-34.

Digital facsimile of the 1835 edition from Google Books at this link.

Huxley was among those who refuted Owen’s theory of the vertebral skull.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

The last important English work on opthalmology published before the invention of the ophthalmoscope. Jones did not appreciate the prototype ophthalmoscope devised by Charles Babbage, and shown to him in 1847. After the success of Helmholtz’s invention (No. 5866) Jones wrote about Babbage’s invention and his role in discouraging it. See No. 5874.

Castellani made several discoveries of great importance in tropical medicine. The above work is a standard text on tropical medicine in English. Third edition, 1919.

This work gives the first accurate description of the female pelvis and its deformities, and the effect of the latter in complicating labor. The first edition contains a relatively unattractive frontispiece portrait of the author, engraved by himself. Latin translation, Leiden, 1701. English translation, London, 1724.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

The first French monograph on osteopathy.

Malgaigne was a brilliant lecturer, notable also as a historian of medieval surgery. His Manuel was an important work on operative surgery, and was translated into English, German, Italian, and Arabic.

Extensively illustrated study of methods of conducting experiments involving vivisection.

One of Napoleon’s leading surgeons, Percy laid down his principles of the practice of military surgery in the same year he was appointed médecin consultant of the Army of the North. He devised his own instrument for bullet extraction, the tribulcon. He was responsible, with Larrey, for the invention of special ambulances and squads of litter-bearers, including a “super-ambulance” capable of carrying 8 surgeons, 8 attendants, and dressings for 1200.

English translations, Philadelphia, 1880, and London, 1882-86.

Gaskell, a physician, addressed social, political and public health problems that resulted from the Industrial Revolution. Gaskell issued a revised edition of this work in 1836 under a different title: Artisans and Machinery The Moral and Physical Condition of the Manufacturing Population Considered with Reference to Mechanical Substitutes of Human Labour. Digital facsimile of the 1833 work from the Internet Archive at this link; of the 1836 work at this link.

Explains the current distribution of sickling throughout the world.

Heath Clark Lectures, 1953.

Clinical use of mapharsen. With R. L. McIntosh, L. M. Wieder, H. R. Foerster, and G. A. Cooper.

Order of authorship in the original publication: Zimmermann, Simmerman-Kogadeeva, Wegmann....The authors looked at 271 drugs and 68 different species from the main taxonomic microbiome groups. Of the 271 drugs, 176 underwent a substantial metabolic change caused by at least one bacterial strain which resulted in a reduction of the level of the active drug. Every bacterial strain tested metabolized some of the drugs. 

Using a practical example drug like Diltiazem (for the treatment of hypertension) the authors found that a specific gene (bt4096) in the common microbiome species Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron is required for the human body to metabolize the drug, and that this specific bacteria is needed to metabolize that drug because only the metabolite of that drug is active in the body as a blood pressure medicine. 

The paper drew three conclusions:

1. Bacteria can metabolize a drug and convert it to its active and useful molecular version.

2. Bacteria can metabolize a drug and inactivate it.

3. Bacteria can metabolize a drug and convert it into a toxic product.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)

Includes medical, statistical cartography.

"The cholera epidemics that plagued London in the nineteenth century were a turning point in the science of epidemiology and public health, and the use of maps to pinpoint the source of the disease initiated an explosion of medical and social mapping not only in London but throughout the British Empire as well. Mapping the Victorian Social Body explores the impact of such maps on Victorian and, ultimately, present-day perceptions of space. Tracing the development of cholera mapping from the early sanitary period to the later "medical" period of which John Snow's work was a key example, the book explores how maps of cholera outbreaks, residents' responses to those maps, and the novels of Charles Dickens, who drew heavily on this material, contributed to an emerging vision of London as a metropolis. The book then turns to India, the metropole's colonial other and the perceived source of the disease. In India, the book argues, imperial politics took cholera mapping in a wholly different direction and contributed to Britons' perceptions of Indian space as quite different from that of home. The book concludes by tracing the persistence of Victorian themes in current discourse, particularly in terms of the identification of large cities with cancerous growth and of Africa with AIDS" (publisher).

Marcellus's compendium of pharmacological preparations drawing on the work of multiple medical and scientific writers as well as folk remedies and magic. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Vol. 1 is an exhaustive biography of Malpighi; the remaining 4 volumes provide an extensive account of the development of embryology, and annotated English translations of Nos. 468 & 469.

Digital facsimile from the Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

One of the first books to discuss the differences between male and female sexual desires, and the first book to note that increased sexual desire in women coincides with ovulation and the period right before menstruation. The book argued that marriage should be an equal relationship between partners. In 1935 a survey of American academics said Married Love was one of the 25 most influential books of the previous 50 years, ahead of Relativity by Albert Einstein, Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud, Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler and The Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes. Digital facsimile of the 6th edition (1919) from the Internet Archive at this link. The first American edition was retitled Married love, or love in marriage (1918). Its full text is available from the University of Pennsylvania at this link.

For the fifteenth edition [1925] G. P. Putnam's Sons of London issued a signed, numbered edition limited to 540 copies signed by the author on the frontispiece. 

"Of the more than 3 million Jewish Poles that perished during the Holocaust, approximately 3,000 were physicians.  It was the goal of the Alliance members to memorialize those physicians who perished during the Holocaust. The published volume was the product of the work of the original members of the Alliance, the original US members and those physicians who successfully immigrated to the US after the Nazi invasion. Therefore, this volume can be likened to a yizkor book for Polish Jewish physicians....

"Part Three of the volume is entitled “Martyred Physicians”.  It is an alphabetical listing of 2,465 summaries of Polish physicians who were known to have perished or disappeared during the Holocaust.  Each listing has a short summary of basic biographical information about the physician and the details of the physician's death if known" (http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Holocaust/0065_Polish_Martyred_Physicians.html, accessed 01-2017).

Lösch discovered Entamoeba histolytica as the infective agent in amoebic dysentery. Before this time distinction between the different forms of dysentery had been made on purely clinical grounds. English translation in Kean (No. 2268.1).

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

The first comprehensive compendium of all known remedies and treatments used by the Hittites. The source texts are ritual descriptions and formularies from the 15th to 13th centuries BCE preserved from the archives of the Hittite capital, Hattusa. The ritual treatments often lasted for several days, and had an obvious psychotherapeutic approach which added significantly to their value as curative magic. Hittite prescriptive formulations demonstrate a close admixture of magical practices and pharmacological knowledge.

Schoepff came to America in 1777 as a surgeon with the Hessian troops employed by the British Forces. He returned to Germany in 1784 and compiled the first full American materia medica, describing about 400 plants, including a few references to native American remedies. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

The first book in English on the materia medica of India, and a pioneering work in the field of Indian medical history. Ainslie joined the British East India Company as an assistant surgeon in 1788 and spent the next 27 years in India, eventually rising to the position of superintending surgeon of the southern division of the army in Madras. He was one of the first European scholars to investigate the traditional Hindu medical system known as Ayurveda,. The specific purpose of his book was to make indigenous remedies available to the British Army, thus reducing its reliance on expensive imported drugs; however, his larger purpose was to bridge the gap between the medical cultures of Europe and Asia. He was careful to distinguish the Indian medicines already known in Europe from those exclusively used by native physicians. Ainslie drew upon works in Sanskrit, Tamil, Persian and Arabic, all of which he cited in his bibliography. The names of the medicaments listed in the work are given in several languages, using roman, Tamil and Arabic types. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Linnaeus’s physician’s reference on pharmacology. Linnaeus classified medicinal plants according to his botanical system and described the therapeutic value of the drugs derived from each plant. He was instrumental in introducing quassia (bitterwood), solanum (nightshade), dulcamara (bittersweet) and many other plant remedies into medicine. His work laid the foundation for the scientific study and development of materia medica, and remained a model for later authors on the subject.

The second and third volumes of this work, on animals and minerals respectively, were published together under the title Materies medica in 1763. Of this later title Soulsby notes: “This very rare work is founded on the Dissertations of 1750, Jonas Sidren, Respondens, & 1752, Johannes Lindhult, Resp. . . . Linnaeus was probably not concerned in its production.” 

The first printed edition of Dioscorides, translator unidentified. A Greek physician from Anazarbus in Cilicia (now Turkey), Dioscorides traveled to the Greek mainland, to Crete, Egypt and Petra. He is believed to have served in the army of the emperor Nero, and may have practiced in Rome in the first century CE. His work, which was of great practical medicinal value, remained in circulation throughout the Middle Ages, in Latin, Greek, and Arabic versions, and was often supplemented with commentary and additions from Arabic and Indian sources. The text which Medemblick published in print was a medieval Latin translation, reworked into alphabetical order, with commentary by the thirteenth century professor of medicine at Padua, Pietro d' Abano. ISTC No. id00261000. Digital facsimile from the Bayerisches Staatsbibliothek at this link.

Dioscorides’ work is the authoritative source on the materia medica of antiquity. He described over 600 plants and plant principles. The above edition by Wellman is the definitive Greek text. It also contains the Fragmenta of Krateuas. 

Translation into Italian of the text of the Naples Dioscorides, a 6-7th century illustrated manuscript. With color facsimiles of the original paintings in the manuscript, 243 modern drawings in color.  Foreword by Mauro Giancaspro and Valentino Mercati. Essays by Paolo Caputo, Paolo De Luca, Roberto De Lucia, Roberto Romano and Manuela De Matteis Tortora, Hans Walter Lack, Pietro Baraldi, Paolo Bensi and Alessandro Menghini. Afterword by Alain Touwaide. 243 Modern botanical images by Luca Massenzio Palermo.

By inoculating healthy subjects with blood of patients suffering from replapsing fever, and producing the fever in the former, Mochutkovski demonstrated not only the communicability of the disease but also the specific pathogenic significance of the spirochaete.

Bateson was convinced that discontinuity was the more important type of variation among animals and plants “in some unknown way a part of their nature and not directly dependent upon natural selection at all”. He showed that Darwin’s concept of variation needed modification.

With F.F. Grigorash and A. A. Krauss. Revised abridged version by Vasil’ev and Grigorash, Moscow, 1964.

The first American book on pediatrics, in the tradition of "advice books" or childcare manuals for mothers. This was the first American printed book on a medical subject written by a woman. Pages 248-75 publish a list of plants with "medicinal qualities... serviceable in the complaints of children." Tyler had the work published anonymously. See C. Gibbons, "Mary Tyler and the Maternal physician," Journal of Regional Culture, 3, 33-34.

Amniotic fluid embolism described.

Milankovitch cycles, first exposition (176 pages). Milankovitch theorized that variations in eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession of the Earth's orbit determined climatic patterns on Earth through orbital forcing, leading to periodic Ice Ages.

Digital facsimile from BnFGallica at this link.

First detailed description of the segmentation of the mammalian ovum.

In the late 1890s, Brödel was brought to the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine  to illustrate for Harvey Cushing, William Halsted, Howard Kelly, and other notable clinicians. Besides creating a prolific amount of work Brödel developed new artistic techniques, such as the carbon dust technique, that helped advance the quality and accuracy of medical illustrations. In 1911 he presided over the creation of the first Department of Art as Applied to Medicine for training other medical illustrators at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, remaining director of this department until 1939.

Classical description of phosphorus necrosis of the jaw, or "phossy jaw". 

A landmark in military surgery, written by the founder of modern military surgery in Germany. Stromeyer, surgeon-general to the army of Hanover, is also notable for his important contributions to orthopedics. See Nos. 4320-21.

Wickersheimer, librarian of University of Strasbourg, contributed several scholarly works on the history of medicine.

A collective work, edited by Pecker, superbly illustrated. Includes Paul Dumaître, "La Bibliothèque de la Faculté de Médecine de Paris,"

With Z. Ohya.

Annotated exhibition catalogue, with introductory essays, describing 99 exceptionally important medieval medical manuscripts as well as a few very early medallions.

The only significantly illustrated early book on medicine in Hebrew. This is an encyclopedia, of which approximately half concerns medicine. One of the first Jews from the Eastern ghetto to obtain a medical education at a German university, Cohn completed his degree at Padua, and served as court physician to the Turkish Sultan.

Vol. I: 900 b.c. to a.d. 1863 (Zeis [see No. 5767] translated, with additions and revisions); Vol. II: 1864-1920; Vol. III: 1921-1946; [Vol. IV]: 25-year index of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, 1946-71; Vol. V: 1971-76. Titles of nearly all foreign citations have been translated into English. Only Vol. I. is annotated.

The second volume was co-authored by Hanaway, Creuss, and James Darragh.

"Moerman places the words "Placebo effect" in quotations because he believes that the placebo effect should be redefined. A placebo, he explains is inert. It has no causal effect. A more appropriate definition of the placebo effect he asserts is the "meaning response."

"It is because of our beliefs and the meaning we assocate with a placebo that determines its effectiveness. Despite this simple formula for determining who will respond to a placebo, it is not a very good predictor for a given individual at a given time. Studies show that there is no method to determine which individuals will respond to a placebo. Attempts have been made to remove placebo responders from studies. Occasionally, researchers will conduct a precursor trial run with a completely unrelated substance to indentify those who might respond to a placebo in an effort to cull these responders from the "real study". These attempts have been futile.

"No reliable indicators have ever been found that identify individual placebo responders. In fact, a person who responds to a placebo in one study has no increased likely hood of responding to a placebo in subsequent studies. More remarkably, if one eliminates the approximately one third of the populace who initially respond to a given placebo, the remaining group will contain about the same proportion of responders in subsequent studies" (David J. Kreiter).

"...explores the ways in which scientific ideas about sex differences in the later Middle Ages participated in the broader cultural assumptions about gender. Professor Cadden discusses how medieval natural philosophical theories and medical notions about reproduction and sexual impulses and experiences intersected with ideas about such matters as the social roles of men and women, the purpose of marriage, and the road to salvation" (publisher).

"This fully illustrated report, with over 130 color images, is based on the groundbreaking American Human Development Index, which provides a single measure of the well-being for all Americans, disaggregated by state and congressional district, as well as by race, gender, and ethnicity. The Index rankings of the 50 states and 435 congressional districts reveal huge disparities in the health, education, and living standards of different groups. For example, overall, Connecticut ranked first among states on the 2008-2009 Index, and Mississippi ranked last, suggesting that there is a 30-year gap in human development between the two states. Further, among congressional districts, New York’s 14th District, in Manhattan, ranked first, and California’s 20th District, near Fresno, ranked last. The average resident of New York’s 14th District earned over three times as much as the average resident of California’s 20th District, lived over four years longer, and was ten times as likely to have a college degree" (publisher).

After publication of this report in book form the Measure of America non-partisan, non-proft social science research project appears to have published its many following reports online. They are available at www.measureofamerica.org#.

 " the first-ever human development report for a wealthy, developed nation. It introduces the American Human Development Index, which provides a single measure of well-being for all Americans, disaggregated by state and congressional district, as well as by gender, race, and ethnicity. The Index rankings of the 50 states and 436 congressional districts reveal huge disparities in the health, education, and living standards of different groups. Clear, precise, objective, and authoritative, this report will become the basis for all serious discussions concerning the realization of a fair, just, and globally competitive American society" (publisher).

Chapters 6-8 cover "Avoidance of offspring" or aspects of contraception.

Wechsler made the first attempt to construct an intelligence scale specifically for adults. Until his effort, most intelligence tests used with adults were not standardized for anyone over 18. 

"Discusses the construction and administration of tests of adult intelligence. The nature of intelligence, need for an adult intelligence scale, mental age and I.Q., intelligence classification, as well as mental deficiency and deterioration are examined. The factorial composition of Bellevue Intelligence Scales is discussed. Specifically, chapters on the selection and description of tests, the population used in standardization, limitations and special merits are included. Clinical evaluation of brain damage and the use of the tests in counseling and guidance are also discussed" (PsycINFO Database Record).

Duchenne studied the mechanism of facial expression during emotion; his atlas of photographs was the first medical book illustrated with photographs of living subjects. Darwin reproduced a number of his photographs in The expression of the emotions (No. 4975).

Bianchi showed that bilateral destruction of the frontal lobes caused character changes, a finding put to practical use by Egas Moniz and others. English translation, Edinburgh, 1922.

Mead performed numerous experiments, including tests with viper venom which lead to his book on poisons. His book describes their effects on the body in accordance with the precepts of the Iatrophysical School, which claimed that all physiologic and pathologic phenomena were the result of the laws of physics. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Summarized research begun in 1896. See No. 3519.

Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

An encyclopedic work that described illustrated and analysed the entire range of instrumentation employed in medical and surgical practice at the end of the 19th century. Reprinted with introduction by James M. Edmonson: San Francisco, Norman Publishing, 1988.

Includes (p. 111) his smooth diet for duodenal ulcer. Fourth edition entitled Introduction to gastro-enterology, 1950.

Helmholtz’s study of the mechanism of the tympanum and ossicles of the middle ear did much to elucidate the phenomenon of audition. It includes a description of “Helmholtz’s ligament” of the malleus. Separate offprint, Bonn, 1869. English translation, London, 1873.

A pioneering study of the physiology and biomechanics of motion and locomotion. The atlas contains illustrations that were printed directly from actual bones embedded in the printing plates. Translated into English by P. Maquet and R. Furlong, as Mechanics of the human walking apparatus, Berlin: Springer, 1992.

Translated into English by Marjorie Grene as The mechanization of the heart: Harvey and Descartes. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2001.

First of a series of papers in the Archives. See also No. 5630.3.

Bigelow was the first to describe in detail the mechanism of the iliofemoral (Bigelow’s) ligament, and to show its importance in the reduction of dislocation by the flexion method.

Summarizes the major early findings of Morgan’s Drosophila research group, which based its research on the rapidly reproducing small vinegar fly, Drosophila melanogaster, often called the fruit fly. This epoch-making book presented evidence that genes were arranged linearly on chromosomes, and that the Mendelian laws could be shown to be based on observable events occurring in cells. The group also showed that heredity could be studied rigorously and quantitatively. Morgan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1933.

Order of authorship in the original publication: Morgan, Sturtevant, Muller, Bridges.
Digital facsimile from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

Demonstration of the existence of secretin in the duodenal secretion. Preliminary note in Lancet, 1902, 1, 813.

With E. Corday, I. C. Brill, A. L. Seller, R. W. Oblath, W. A. Flieg, and H. E. Kruger.

Proof of tubular secretion in mammals.

Sir Thomas Lewis was a pioneer in the application of electrocardiography to clinical medicine. His book was both an exhaustive treatise on the subject for its time, and a valuable bibliographical source. Second edition: The mechanism and graphic registration of the heart beat, 1920; third and last edition,1925.

Horvitz and colleagues identified several key components in the molecular pathway of programmed cell death, including: EGL-1, a protein which activates apoptosis by inhibiting CED-9.

"Synaptic transmission plays a central role in the nervous system as the mechanism that allows for chemical and electrical communication between cells and thus connects discrete elements into the functioning whole. This is a broad account of anatomical, biochemical, embryological, medical, pathological, pharmacological, and physiological studies on synaptic transmission during the hundred years beginning in 1890. During this century, the process of synaptic transmission came to be recognized not only as the most fundamental neurophysiological process, but also as a seat of pathological changes, and as the predominant site of action for drugs used to treat a wide range of psychiatric and neurological disorders" (Publisher).

Translated into English William J. Dakin as The Mechanism and Physiology of Sex Determination (London: Methuen & Co., 1923). Digital facsimile of the 1920 edition from Google Books at this link. Digital facsimile of the English translation from the Internet Archive at this link.

This work established Loeb's reputation as a researcher who treated organisms as machines. He stated that biologists explain organic phenomena only when they could control those phenomena. Loeb first published the title essay in Popular Science Monthly, 80, 1912, 5-22.

Full descriptions of 922 items; some illustrated.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

The best account of Chinese medicine published in Europe during the 19th century, including translations from original Chinese medical texts. Dabry was French consul at Hang-Keou. Soubeiran, a pharmacist, edited his work for publication. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

English translation by B. Fielding, London, 1968.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

The most comprehensive study of this subject.

First appeared in Gaz. méd. d’Algerie, 1859, 4. 

This work edited by Fourcroy contains in vol. 4 (pp. 85-88) the first description of Chopart’s method of partial amputation of the foot. This is in the form of a note by Lafiteau: “Observation sur une amputation partielle du pied”. Lafiteau also named “Chopart’s joint”, the astragaloscaphoid and calcaneo-cuboid articulation. François Chopart was born in 1743 and died in 1795.

One of the pioneer histories of medicine in France. "He [Monteil] boasted of having been the first to write really 'national' history, and he wished further to show this in a memoir entitled L'Influence de l'histoire des divers etats, ou comment fill allée la France si elle est eu cette histoire. (1840; reprinted in 1841 under the title: Les Français pour la premiere fois dans l'histoire de France, ou poetique de l'histoire des divers etats).^[1]  Monteil did not invent the history of civilization, but he was one of the first in France, and perhaps in Europe, to point out its extreme importance. He revised the third edition of his history himself (5 vols, 1848); a fourth appeared after his death with a preface by Jules Janin (5 vols, 1853)" (Wikipedia). Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive, at this link.

Albarran, a Cuban, became a teacher of the highest rank and attained a professorship at Paris in 1892. He was the first surgeon in France to perform perineal prostatectomy.

Janet’s summary of his work with hypnosis, including one of the most detailed histories of hypnosis available. English translation, as Psychological healing, 2 vols., 1925.

Vitet was a medical doctor who later became mayor of Lyon. Baas, Outlines of the history of medicine III, 716 writes that he "introduced the experimental method into veterinary medicine."  Volume 3 contains both an analysis of available medications and their applications and an analytical bibliography, with unusually long notes, of prior writings on veterinary medicine. Digital facsimiles of the set from the Hathi Trust at this link.

Transcription, French translation, and study of this papyrus dating from the reign of Amenophis II (1424-1398 BCE). The papyrus, written for teaching purposes, concerns diagnosis of pathology in the elderly, tumors (including cancer and lymphoma), mummification, and remedial therapy.

Digital facsimile from BnF Gallica at this link.

Needham, a physician better known for his work in journalism, was one of the earliest – if not the first – Englishman to write on the germ theory. In his book he included an account of Kircher’s experiments with the microscope.

Reprinted London 1966.

This pre-Galenic astrological text by an unknown author from the later part of the 13th century concerns astrological prognostication. It was based upon Book III of Galen's De diebus criticis, but provided a "handy shortcut" to Galen's more convoluted text. Using it a skilled astrologer-physician could in theory calculate the critical days of an illness according to the length of the phases of the moon.

Complete perineal prostatectomy, September 1891.

An early history of diseases, with extensive sections on ophthalmology (ff. 66-77) and urology (ff. 260-271). Lib. IV, Cap. iii, page 196 contains the first recorded case of gastric ulcer. Lib. VI. cap. iii contains the first description of angioneurotic edema (later described as Quincke's edema, No. 4081). Digital facsimile from the Medical Heritage Library, Internet Archive at this link.

First published by Brindley in Latin in 1749. This is the best edition. Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

This collection of Roman, Late Antique, and Byzantine medical works, written after Hippocrates and Galen, was edited and published by Henri Estienne. The unusually worded title page states that it contains Latin translations of works by Aretaeus, Rufus of Ephesus, Oribasius, Paul of Aegina, Aetius, Alexander of Tralles, and other works including Actuarius, and Nic. Myrepsus. It also contains the Latin texts of Celsus, Scribonius Largus, Marcellus Empricus, Oribasius, Sextus Philosophicus, Aetius, Philaretus, Theophilus, Actuarius Zach. fil., Nicholaus Myrepsus Alexandrinus, Celsus, Scribonius Largus, Marcellus Empiricus, Quintus Serenus Samonicus.

Digital facsimile of Sudhoff's copy from the Bayerische StaatsBibliothek at this link. On the title page of that copy an early reader added page references to the various texts, and also wrote in the names of various other authors not mentioned on the title page by Estienne, including Demetrios Pepagomenos, whose work on gout appeared here for the first time.

Sibson was professor of medicine at St. Mary’s Hospital. “Sibson’s fascia” and “muscle” are named after him. Plates 19-21 show movements, structure and sounds of the heart.

Covers institutions in Chicago and environs: Augustana Hospital, the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Hahnemann Medical College and Hospital, Mercy Hospital, Michael Reese Hospital, Northwestern University Medical School, Northwestern University Woman's Medical School, Post-Graduate Medical School and Hospital, Rush Medical College, and St. Luke's Hospital. Also the Battle Creek, Michigan sanitarium. Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

Addenda and corrigenda by D.A. Kronick, Bull. Hist. Med. 1958, 32, 456-74.

The first textbook on aviation medicine. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

First official medical and surgical history of a war.

Written by Woodward, Smart, Otis, and Huntington under the direction of Joseph K. Barnes, Surgeon General of the Army. This massive, graphically illustrated set has been called the “first comprehensive American medical book”. It is one of the most remarkable works ever published on military medicine. An index of operators and reporters appears at the end of the third surgical volume. This index makes it possible to look up any surgeon, and find the patients he treated. 

Woodward published an account of diarrhoea and dysentery in Pt.2, Vol. 1 (1879) pp. 1-869. Garrison considered this the greatest single monograph on dysentery. Woodward saw the Lösch amoeba, but without recognizing its significance.

Appendix to Part I, Containing Reports of Medical Directors, and Other Documents includes on pp. 92-104, LXXXII. Extracts from a Report of the Operations of the Medical Department of the Army of the Potomac from July 4th to December 31st, 1862. By JONATHAN LETTERMAN, Surgeon, U. S. Army, Medical Director of the Army of the Potomac. (Digital text of Letterman's report is available from U.S. Army Medical Department Office of Medical History at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from the U.S. National Library of Medicine at this link.

"Through an analysis of twenty-four examples of female-owned herbals supplemented by case studies of the herbal references in the writings of Margaret Hoby, Grace Mildmay, Elizabeth Isham, and Isabella Whitney, Rebecca Laroche seeks to uncover the myriad ways that women engaged herbal texts along with the multiple contexts of their usage. She investigates the texts for their practical value, rather than as reference texts to help modern scholars understand allusions in early modern literary works.

"Her work is firmly within the revisionist critique of the concept of the medical marketplace and the tripartite division of medical authority into physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries, a model that excludes and subjugates women. Beginning with an examination of herbals written by men, she shows how these intentionally authoritative and comprehensive texts aimed to bring a more complete herbal knowledge to a projected audience of learned men, and to masculinize the herbal tradition. John Parkinson, for example, produced two books on herbals: one for women that demonstrated the delights to be found in plants and one for men that incorporated more intellectual debates and medicinal remedies. The published herbals, through their construction of the female reader, attempted to limit the medical activities of women, but the extensive information they supplied enabled gentlewomen in particular to acquire considerable medical knowledge" (https://muse.jhu.edu/article/522314, accessed 05-2018).

A history of medical bibliography since World War II, focusing on the information requirements of biomedical research; supplements No. 6785.1

Although of limited scientific value, this extensively annotated work is the most humorous bibliography of medical literature ever published, even if the humor is of a "rarified" nature. Atkinson, surgeon to the Duke of York and senior surgeon to York County Hospital, published this work when he was 74 years old. There is nothing in it to indicate that he ever intended to continue the work beyond the letter B. Most copies were issued with a cancel title, London, John Churchill, 1834.  Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

"The accomplishments of pioneering doctors such as John Peter Mettauer, James Marion Sims, and Nathan Bozeman are well documented. It is also no secret that these nineteenth-century gynecologists performed experimental caesarean sections, ovariotomies, and obstetric fistulae repairs primarily on poor and powerless women. Medical Bondage breaks new ground by exploring how and why physicians denied these women their full humanity yet valued them as “medical superbodies” highly suited for medical experimentation.

"... Owens examines a wide range of scientific literature and less formal communications in which gynecologists created and disseminated medical fictions about their patients, such as their belief that black enslaved women could withstand pain better than white “ladies.” Even as they were advancing medicine, these doctors were legitimizing, for decades to come, groundless theories related to whiteness and blackness, men and women, and the inferiority of other races or nationalities. Medical Bondage moves between southern plantations and northern urban centers to reveal how nineteenth-century American ideas about race, health, and status influenced doctor-patient relationships in sites of healing like slave cabins, medical colleges, and hospitals. It also retells the story of black enslaved women and of Irish immigrant women from the perspective of these exploited groups and thus restores for us a picture of their lives" (publisher).

This contains useful information not included in the third edition (1990). See No. 6786.34.

Issued in numbers from 1790-1795, this is the first edition in book form. This work, which underwent several later editions, remained the standard work on the plants of the British pharmacopoeia until the 1880s. Digital facsimile of the first edition from the Internet Archive at this link. Later editions frequently contained beautiful hand-colored plates.

The author intended to update and correct the earlier works on American materia medica by Barton, Bigelow and Rafinesque, and to make this information available at a reasonable price. Digital facsimile from the Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

Includes 185 hand-colored plates. Digital facsimile from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.