1734 TENNENT, John (1700 – 1760)

Every man his own doctor: or, The poor planter's physician. Prescribing plain and easy means for persons to cure themselves of all, or most of the distempers, incident to this climate, and with very little charge, the medicines being chiefly of the growth and production of this country.

The first medical hand-book for lay persons written and published in America. It is probable that this book was first published in 1734, though the earliest recorded copy or copies appear to be the "second edition" wi…

GMN 9675 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/11862

1743 GRONOVIUS, Jan Frederik (1690 – 1762); CLAYTON, John (1694 – 1773)

Flora Virginica exhibens plantas quas v. c. Johannes Clayton in Virginia observavit atque collegit. Easdem method sexuali-disposuit, ad genera propria retulit, nominbus specificis insignivit, & minus cognitas descriptsit.

The first flora of Virginia. As stated on the title page, Gronovius, a Dutch botanist, based this work on specimens collected by the Virginia plant collector and botanist John Clayton. While Clayton supplied the speci…

GMN 12478 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/14711

1775 ADAIR, James (1709 – 1793)

The history of the American Indians; particularly those nations adjoining to the Missisippi [sic] East and West Florida, Georgia, South and North Carolina, and Virginia: containing an account of their origin, language, manners, religious and civil customs, laws, form of government, punishments, conduct in war and domestic life, their habits, diet, agriculture, manufactures, diseases and method of cure... With observations on former historians, the conduct of our colony governors, superintendents, missionaries, & c. Also an appendix, containing a description of the Floridas, and the Missisippi [sic] lands, with their productions--the benefits of colonizing Georgiana, and civilizing the Indians--and the way to make all the colonies more valuable to the mother country....

The author characterized himself on the title page as "a Trader with the Indians and a Resident in their Country for Forty Years." Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

GMN 7505 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/9677

1785 JEFFERSON, Thomas (1743 – 1826)

Notes on the State of Virginia; written in the year 1781, somewhat corrected and enlarged in the winter of 1782, for the use of a foreigner of distinction, in answer to certain queries proposed by him.

Jefferson wrote Notes on the State of Virginia in response to a series of questions sent in 1781 to various members of the Continental Congress by François Barbé-Marbois, then secretary to the French legation at Phila…

GMN 11450 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/13649

1930 –1933 BLANTON, Wyndham Bolling (1890 – 1960)

Medicine in Virginia in the seventeenth (eighteenth, nineteenth) century. 3 vols.

GMN 6588 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/8498

1978 SAVITT, Todd L. (1943 – )

Medicine and slavery. The diseases and health care of blacks in antebellum Virginia.

GMN 7047 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/9214