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1,279 entries match Plagues & Epidemics [C01.252]

1656

#7620

Cortex Peruviae redivivus, profligator febrium, assertus ab impugnationibus Melippi Protimi ...

The first book on Peruvian bark or cinchona (chinchona) in the treatment of malaria.

1658

#1825

De Indiae utriusque re naturali et medica libri quatuordecim.

This is an extensively revised and enlarged second edition of Piso’s Historia naturalis Brasiliae (1648). In this edition Piso reprinted Bontius's De medicina Indorum (1642) with two additional books on Asian flora an…

1658

#2528.1

Scrutinium physico-medicum contagiosae luis, quae pestis dicitur.

Kircher, a Jesuit scholar and polymath, not specifically trained in medicine, was probably the first to employ the microscope in investigating the cause of disease. He mentioned that the blood of plague patients was f…

1663

#1826

Anastasis corticis Peruviae, seu chinae defensio

A defence of the virtues of Jesuit's bark or Peruvian bark (cinchona, chinchona), the most celebrated specific remedy for malaria. It was obtained from the bark of several species of the genus Cinchona, of the Rubiace…

1664

#4485.1

Traité de la maladie vénérienne, de ses causes et des accidens provenans du mercure, ou vif-argent.

First to describe gonococcal arthritis.

1665

#5119

London’s dreadful visitation, or, a collection of all the Bills of Mortality for the present year: beginning the 27th of December 1664, and ending the 19th of December following…By the Company of Parish Clerks of London.

BILLS OF MORTALITY

This is a valuable statistical record of the great plague of 1665. (No. 6052 in the Bibliotheca Osleriana.)

1665

#13275

Loimologia: A consolatory advice, and some brief observations concerning the present pest.

Thomson was one of the few physicians who remained in London to treat patients during the plague of 1665. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

1666

#13276

Loimotomia, or, The pest anatomized in these following particulars, Viz. 1. The material cause of the pest, 2. The efficient cause of the pest, 3. The subject part of the pest, 4. The signs of the pest, 5. An historical account of the dissections of a pestilential body by the author, and the consequences thereof, 6. Reflections and observations on the fore-said dissection, 7. Directions preservative and curative against the pest: Together with the authors apology against the calumnies of the Galenists, and a word to Mr. Nath. Hodges, concerning his late Vindiciae medicinae.

One of the earliest books that illustrated human dissection for a contagious disease. Digital text available from Early English Books Online at this link.

1667

#5450

Histoire générale des Antilles habités par les Français. Tom. 1.

Du Tertre, a priest, described (pp. 81, 99, 423) the outbreaks of yellow fever at Guadeloupe in 1635, 1640, and 1648.

1667

#6823

Gods terrible voice in the city of London wherein you have the narration of the two late dreadful judgements of plague and fire, inflicted by the Lord upon that city; the former in the year 1665. The latter in the year 1666

This edition of a plague tract by English puritan minister Thomas Vincent was the first medical or biological publication in North America. It was issued by printer Samuel Green, using a press in Cambridge, Massachuse…

1671

#5405

Globus vitulinus.

First authentic report on variolation.

1672

#5121

Λοιμόλόγια sive pestis nuperae apud populum Londinensem grassantis narratio historica.

Best medical record of the Great Plague of 1665. Hodges was physician to the City of London and the medical hero of the great epidemic. English translation by John Quincy, 1720: Loimologia, or, An historical account o…

1674 –1675

#3926

Pharmaceutice rationalis sive diatriba de medicamentorum operationibus in humano corpore. 2 vols.

Willis’s last work deals with the anatomy and physiology of the thoracic and abdominal organs, and contains the first description of the superficial lymphatics of the lungs, the first clinical and pathological account…

1676

#61

Opera. 6 vols.

Besides giving early accounts of scarlatina and rubella, Sennert added to the knowledge of scurvy, dysentery and alcoholism. He was an able clinician and also a believer in witchcraft. His Opera was first published in…

1676

#2198

Observationes medicae circa morborum acutorum historiamet curationem.

Sydenham recorded significant observations on dysentery, scarlet fever (p. 387), scarlatina, measles and other conditions. He stressed the clinical study of medicine and kept careful case records. Includes (pp. 272-80…

1676

#5573

Severall chirurgicall treatises.

Wiseman ranks in surgery as high as does Sydenham in medicine. He made many valuable contributions to the subject; he was the first to describe tuberculosis of the joints (“tumor albus”) and he gave a good account of …

1677

#5406

A brief rule to guide the common-people of New-England how to order themselves and theirs in the small pocks, or measels.

The first medical publication of North America and the only one to appear in the 17th century. Only one copy of the original printing of this broadside survived, written by Thacher, a Boston minister. The sheet was re…

1677

#5122

De postrema Melitensi lue praxis historica.

This work, recording the epidemic of plague in Malta in 1675-76, was the first medical work published by a Maltese.

1679

#2321

Opera medica.

Tuberculosis was known to the ancients only in its advanced form, and little progress was made in the knowledge of the condition until the time of Sylvius. He asserted that tubercles are often to be found in the lung …

1679

#9909

A discourse of the state of health in the island of Jamaica. With a provision therefore calculated from the air, the place, and the water: the customs and manners of living, &c.

The first English book on tropical medicine. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

1681

#5161

Epistola… qua simul de anthrace, carbunculo, bubone et altauna, philologice disseritur.

1683

#8934

Trattado unico das bexigas, e sarampo, offerecido a D. João de Sousa, composto por Romaõ Mõsia Reinhipo.

One of the first works on medicine practiced in Brazil, published by Mourão under the pseudonym Romaõ Mõsia Reinhipo. Mourão distinguished clearly between smallpox and measles. There was still much confusion in the se…

1684

#2375

Tuta, ac efficax luis venereae, saepe absque mercurio, ac semper absque salivatione mercuriali curando methodus.

Abercromby advanced the idea that syphilis was caused by a parasite, and promoted mercury as a treatment. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

1684

#1311

Dr. Willis's practice of physick.

The only complete edition of Willis's works in English, translated by the poet Samuel Pordage. It contains the translations of all his works except his Affectionum quae dicuntur hystericae (1671). The collection inclu…

1685

#5373

Observationum medicarum Castrensium Hungaricarum.

Pp. 49-51: Cober, a German physician, reported the relationship between typhus and pediculosis.

1685

#5407

Observationes medicae circa morborum acutorum historiam et curationem. Ed. quarta.

Contains (Book 3, Cap. 2; Book 5, Cap. 4) an important account of smallpox, particularly the epidemics of 1667-69 and 1674-75. Sydenham attributed smallpox to a specific inflammation of the blood; he clearly distingui…

1685

#11128

Traité des maladies particulières aux pays orientaux, et dans la route, et de leurs Remèdes. Par M.C.D.D.E.M.

At the age of 17, Dellon, who is sometimes referred to as Gabriel Dellon, embarked as second surgeon aboard the ship La Force. He arrived at Darman, in the Portuguese Indies, in 1673, where he was doctor to Luis de Me…

1694

#8930

Trattado unico da constituiçam pestilencial de Pernambuco, offerecido a ElRey N.S. por ser servido ordenar por seu Governador aos Medicos da America, que assistem aonde ha este contagio, que o compusessem para se conferirem pelos Coripheos da Medicina aos dictames com que he trattada esta pestilencial febre.

The first scientific description of yellow fever in Brazil by the first European physician to treat the disease in Brazil, and perhaps in all of Latin America. It includes the description of the first autopsy of a yel…

1694

#10455

Raguaglio historico del contaggio occorso nella provincia di Bari negli anni 1690, 1691 e 1692.

Arrieta published two very early disease maps in this work showing locations of plague in the province of Bari, Italy, and his employment of troops to isolate those areas. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive a…

1707

#8938

Noticias do que he o achaque do bicho, diffiniçam do seu crestame[n]to, subimento corrupçaõ, sinaes, & cura atè, o quinto grao, ou intensaõ delle, suas differenças, & co[m]plicaços, com que se ajunta.

This book has been "considered by some authors to be the first reference to the chagasic megaesophagus and megacolon that appeared in history. In descriptions considered to refer megaesophagus, although dysphagia, the…

1712

#5231

Therapeutice specialis ad febres quasdam pemiciosas, inopinato, ac repente lethales, una vera china china, peculiare methodo ministrata, sanabiles

Torti’s work finally established the specific nature of cinchona bark. His demonstration of its effectiveness in periodic over continuous fevers finally overthrew the doctrine of the common origin of all fevers. He is…

1714 –1716

#5409

An account, or history, of the procuring of the smallpox by incision or inoculation, as it has for some time been practised at Constantinople.

A letter dated December, 1713 from Timoni of Constantinople to John Woodward, and read to the Royal Society in May, 1714, described the practice in that city of inoculation against smallpox. The letter aroused interes…

1714 –1716

#5410

Nova & tuta variolas excitandi per transplantationem methodus, nuper inventa & in usum tracta.

This reprint of No. 5409.1 appeared in the same volume as Timoni’s paper. Both were republished in Latin: Tractatus bini de nova variolas per transplantationem excitandi methodo, Leyden, 1721. Digital facsimile of 172…

1715

#5409.1

Nova et tuta variolas excitandi per transplantationem methodus; nuper inventa & in usum tracta: Qua rite peracta, immunia in posterum praeservantur ab huiusmodi contagio corpora.

Inoculation was practiced in ancient times. In 1701 Pilarino inoculated three children at Constantinople with smallpox virus. He is credited with the “medical” discovery of variolation, and is thus the first immunolog…

1717

#5232

De noxiis paludum effluviis, eorumque remediis.

Lancisi suggested that since malaria disappears after drainage it was due to some sort of poison emanating from marshes and possibly transmitted by mosquitoes. He planned a drainage scheme for marshy regions. His work…

1717

#10530

Syphilis: A practical dissertation on the venereal disease. In which, after a short account of its nature and original; the diagnostick and prognostick signs, with the best ways of curing the several degrees of that distemper, together with some historical observations relating to the same, are candidly and without reserve, communicated. In two parts.

The first work published in English to include the word syphilis, and also the first English work to include the word condom. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

1720

#3217

A new theory of consumptions : more especially of a phthisis, or consumption of the lungs.

Marten believed that an infectious micro-organism was the cause of tuberculosis, thus forecasting the existence of the tubercle bacillus 162 years before its actual discovery. Though Leeuwenhoek reported seeing bacter…

1720

#5123

A short discourse concerning pestilential contagion, and the methods to be used to prevent it.

In 1719 Mead was asked for advice concerning an outbreak of plague in Marseilles, and replied with the above tract of 59 pages, which has been called the first epidemiological report produced by a physician at the com…

1721

#5410.1

Some account of what is said of inoculating or transplanting the small pox by the learned Dr. Emmanuel Timonius, and Jacobus Pylarinus. With some remarks theron. To which are added, a few queries in answer to the scruples of many about the lawfulness of this method.

An abridgement of Nos. 5409 & 5410 together with Boylston’s remarks. From internal evidence this 24-page pamphlet would appear to be the first North American publication on inoculation. See No. 5415. Digital facsimile…

1721

#5411

Some observations on the new method of receiving the smallpox by ingrafting or inoculating.

This work offers general support for the practice of Zabdiel Boylston, detailing some of Boylston’s cases, including accounts of occasions when patients died. Reprinted with additional material by Daniel Neal, as A na…

1721

#9521

A Collection of Very Valuable and Scarce Pieces relating to the last Plague in the year 1665. viz. I. Orders drawn up and published by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London to prevent the spreading of the infection. II. An account of the first rise, progress, symptoms and cure of the Plague, being the substance of a letter from Doctor Hodges to a person of quality. III. Necessary directions for the prevention for cure of the plague, with divers remedies of small charge by the College of Physicians. IV. Reflections on the Weekly Bills of Mortality, so far as they relate to all the plagues which have happend in London from the year 1592 to the Great Plague in 1665, and some other particular diseases. With a preface shewing the usefulness of this collection: some errors of Dr. Mead, and his misrepresentations of Dr. Hodges and some authors. To which is added An Account of the plague at Naples in 1656, etc. [Compiled by William Beckett.].

Attributed to William Beckett by OCLC. Digital facsimile of the 1721 second edition from the Internet Archive at this link.

1721

#10651

Relation des différentes espèces de peste qui reconnaissent les orientaux, des précautions & des remèdes qu'ils prennent pour empêcher la communication & le progrès; et ce que nous devons faire à leur exemple pour nous en préserver, & nous en guérir.

Gaudereau worked as a missionary in Turkey, Armenia, Persia, and India, facing plague outbreaks several times. In Turkey he almost succumbed to the plague, himself, but was cured using local remedies. These remedies a…

1722

#5412

Inoculation of the smallpox as practised in Boston.

1722

#5413

The abuses and scandals of some late pamphlets in favour of inoculation of the small-pox.

Douglass at first opposed inoculation for smallpox, but by 1730 he had changed his views and had become an advocate of inoculation.

1722

#5414

An account of the method and success of inoculating the small pox in Boston in New England.

Mather republished reports of earlier writers on inoculation. He persuaded Boylston to adopt the practice in June 1721, and he supported Boylston during a period of great opposition to inoculation.

1722

#5414.1

Mr. Maitland’s account of inoculating the small pox.

Maitland inoculated the children of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in 1721, and also inoculated six condemned prisoners as part of the so-called “Royal Experiment”. Success with these trials lead to his inoculation of the …

1722

#10199

A journal of the plague year: Being observatrions or memorials, of the most remarkable occurrences, as well publick as private, which happened in London during the last great visitation in 1665. Written by a citizen who continued all the while in London. Never made publick before.

Though he may be most widely remembered as a novelist--especially for Robinson Crusoe, Defoe was an English trader, writer of non-fiction as well as fiction, journalist, pamphleteer and spy. This book is an account of…

1723

#1689

A letter … containing, a comparison between the mortality of the natural small pox, and that given by inoculation.

Jurin was an enthusiastic supporter of inoculation against smallpox, and proved statistically that the fatality of inoculated smallpox is very much less than the fatality of natural smallpox. This is one of the earlie…

1726

#5415

An historical account of the small-pox inoculated in New-England, upon all sorts of persons, whites, blacks, and of all ages and constitutions: With some account of the nature of the infection in the natural and inoculated way, and their different effects on human bodies; with some short directions to the unexperienced in this method of practice .

Boylston was the first in America to inoculate for smallpox, at Boston on 26 June 1721. "During a smallpox outbreak in 1721 in Boston, he inoculated about 248 people[5] by applying pus from a smallpox sore to a small …

1730

#5048

Account of the operation of bronchotome, as it was performed at St. Andrews.

Martine was the first to perform tracheotomy for diphtheria.