An Interactive Annotated World Bibliography of Printed and Digital Works in the History of Medicine and the Life Sciences from Circa 2000 BCE to 2024 by Fielding H. Garrison (1870-1935), Leslie T. Morton (1907-2004), and Jeremy M. Norman (1945- ) Traditionally Known as “Garrison-Morton”

16061 entries, 14144 authors and 1947 subjects. Updated: December 4, 2024

Browse by Publication Year 1780–1789

155 entries
  • 981

Dissertazioni di fisica animale e vegetable. 2 vols.

Modena: Presso la Società Tipografica, 1780.

In the first patrt of this work, Della digestione dissertazione prima Spallanzani confirmed earlier doctrines of the solvent property of the gastric juice and discovered the action of the saliva in digestion. He stated that gastric juice can act outside the body and can prevent or inhibit putrefaction. He obtained gastric juice by tying a sponge on a piece of string, then allowing it to be swallowed. The second part contains Spallanzani's experimental researches on reproduction in animals and plants in which he demonstrated the role of seminal fluid in generation. The second part also includes his investigations into artifical fertilization, in which he recorded the first case of artificial insemination in a viviparous animal.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link. English translation, as Dissertations relative to the natural history of animals and vegetables (1784). Digital facsimile of the 1784 edition from the Internet Archive at this link.



Subjects: BIOLOGY › Reproduction, GASTROENTEROLOGY › Anatomy & Physiology of Digestion
  • 2205

Observations on fevers, especially those of the continued type, and on the scarlet fever attended with ulcerated sore-throat, as it appeared at Newcastle upon Tyne in the year 1778: Together with a comparative view of that epidemic with the scarlet fever as described by authors, and the angina maligna.

London: T. Cadell, 1780.

Digital facsimile from the Intenet Archive at this link.



Subjects: COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › England (United Kingdom), INFECTIOUS DISEASE, INFECTIOUS DISEASE › Scarlet Fever
  • 1386

Adnotationum academicarum. Fasciculus tertius. III. De functionibus systematis nervosi. 3 pts.

Prague: W. Gerle, 17801784.

Prochaska introduced the idea of a “sensorium commune” in the central nervous system, a consistent and comprehensive theory of reflex action. English translation, London, Sydenham Society, 1851.



Subjects: NEUROSCIENCE › NERVOUS SYSTEM › Brain, including Medulla: Cerebrospinal Fluid
  • 1987.4
  • 4478.103

Gymnastique médicinale et chirurgicale, ou essai sur l’utilité du mouvement, ou des différens exercices du corps, et du repos dans la cure des maladies.

Paris: Bastien, 1780.

The first book on therapeutic exercise as the term is understood today. English translation with facsimiles in reduced format of 18th century translations into German, Italian and Swedish, New Haven, [1964].



Subjects: PHYSICAL MEDICINE / REHABILITATION › Exercise / Training / Fitness, PHYSICAL MEDICINE / REHABILITATION › Physical Therapy, Sports Medicine
  • 5162

Description et traitement du charbon dans les animaux.

Paris: De l'Imprimerie Royale, 1780.

First important clinical description of anthrax. For some time after the appearance of Chabert’s short book, the condition was known as “Chabert’s disease”. Chabert was Directeur & Inspecteur général of the Écoles Royales-Vétérinaires. Digital facsimile from BiuSanté at this link.



Subjects: INFECTIOUS DISEASE › Anthrax, VETERINARY MEDICINE
  • 5488

Tableau historique et raisonné des épidémies catharrales vulgairement dites la grippe; depuis 1510 jusques et y compris celle de 1780.

Paris: Didot, 1780.


Subjects: EPIDEMIOLOGY › History of Epidemiology, INFECTIOUS DISEASE › History of Infectious Disease, INFECTIOUS DISEASE › Influenza
  • 5421

Account of a woman who had the smallpox during pregnancy, and who seemed to have communicated the same disease to the foetus.

Phil. Trans., 70, 128-42, 1780.


Subjects: INFECTIOUS DISEASE › Smallpox , OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGY › OBSTETRICS
  • 5469

Korte aantekening wegens eene algemeene ziekte, doorgaans genaamd knokkel-koorts.

Verh. Batav. Genootsch. Kunsten Wet., Batavia, 2, 17-30, 1780.

Bylon described an epidemic of dengue which appeared in the Dutch East Indies in 1779, the first definite description of the disease. O. H. P. Pepper published a photographic reproduction of the article in Ann. med. Hist., 1941, 3rd ser., 3, 363-68. Digital facsimile of the 1780 edition from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › Indonesia, EPIDEMIOLOGY, INFECTIOUS DISEASE › VECTOR-BORNE DISEASES › Mosquito-Borne Diseases, INFECTIOUS DISEASE › VECTOR-BORNE DISEASES › Mosquito-Borne Diseases › Dengue Fever, TROPICAL Medicine
  • 6705

Biographical memoirs of medicine in Great Britain from the revival of literature to the time of Harvey.

London: J. Johnson, 1780.

The first collection of British medical biographies.



Subjects: BIOGRAPHY (Reference Works)
  • 8589

Experiments establishing a criterion between mucaginous and purulent matter. An an account of the retrograde motions of the absorbent vessels of animal bodies in some diseases.

Litchfield, England: Printed for J. Jackson...., 1780.

Includes the first description of the value of digitalis in the treatment of patients with heart failure, with discussion of several successful cases. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.  Darwin and Withering were associated through the Lunar Society of Birmingham.



Subjects: CARDIOLOGY › CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE › Heart Failure, PHARMACOLOGY › PHARMACEUTICALS › Botanic Sources of Single Component Drugs › Digitalis, PHARMACOLOGY › PHARMACEUTICALS › Cardiovascular Medications
  • 9466

Observations on the diseases which appeared in the army on St. Lucia....To which are prefixed remarks calculated to assist in ascertaining the causes, and in explaining the treatment of those diseases.

Barbados: Printed for the author, 1780.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link. Revised and expanded edition, 1781; digital facsimile of the 1781 edition from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › Caribbean, MILITARY MEDICINE, SURGERY & HYGIENE, TROPICAL Medicine
  • 9547

Osteografia e miografia della testa, mani, e piedi del corpo umano in misura naturale con il catalogo de' nomi propri.

Bologna: Presso Antonio Cattani e Antonio Nerozzi, 1780.

Very distinctive engravings with the captions included within the engraved surfaces. Printed and sold by the artist.



Subjects: ANATOMY › Anatomical Illustration
  • 11798

Testacea musei Caesarei Vindobonensis, que jussu Mariae Theresiae Ausgustae.

Vienna: Johann Paul Kraus, 1780.

Born was commissioned in 1776, by Maria-Therese, Empress of the Holy Roman Empire, to inventory and arrange the imperal collection that formed the foundation of the imperial museum, now the Naturhistorische Museum in Vienna. Owing to Maria-Therese's death in 1780 this volume was the only one published. Copies were issued with the plates colored or uncolored. Digital facsimile of an uncolored copy from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.



Subjects: ZOOLOGY › Malacology
  • 11874

Della morte apparente degli annegati.

Florence: Per Gaetano Cambiagi Stamator Granducale, 1780.

The first Italian work on resusciation. Testa’s work is also one of the earliest on the subject published after the foundation in 1767 of Amsterdam’s pioneering Maatschappij tot Redding van Drenkelingen, the first organization devoted to rescuing and reviving persons apparently drowned. Prior to 1767 anyone taken from the water apparently lifeless was presumed dead and no attempts were made to revive them; however, after the Amsterdam society began publishing reports in 1768 its methods were rapidly adopted throughout Europe. Testa’s book contains three references to the Maatschappi, as well as to numerous other authorities on drowning both ancient and contemporary. He carefully described the symptoms of drowning—water in the lungs, cessation of respiration, accumulation of blood in the head and chest—but denied that these were the cause of death, instead ascribing drowning deaths to phlogiston (inflammable air) retained in the lungs. Testa believed that drowning was a gradual death, therefore resuscitation was possible even if all perceptible signs of life were absent. Testa’s hypothesis on the causes of drowning was not widely accepted. 

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: Resuscitation
  • 104

Ueber den Bildungstrieb und das Zeugungsgeschäft.

Göttingen: J. C. Dieterich, 1781.

Blumenbach, Professor of Medicine at Göttingen, was the founder of modern anthropology. In the above work he rejected the “preformation” theory and advanced the theory of epigenesis as the true explanation of the phenomenon of embryological development. English translation, London, [1792?].



Subjects: EMBRYOLOGY
  • 4305.1

Dissertation sur la meilleure forme des souliers.

The Hague: Aux depens de l'Auteur, 1781.

Classic discussion of childhood shoe-induced deformities. There was also an edition in Dutch published the same year. Digital facsimile of the edition in French from the Internet Archive at this link. English translation in Dowie, The foot and its covering, London, 1861. Digital facsimile of Downie's book from the Internet Archive at this link.



Subjects: ORTHOPEDICS › Orthopedic Surgery & Treatments › Foot / Ankle, Podiatry
  • 5000

Bibliotheca chirurgica. 2 vols.

Vienna: J. T. de Trattner, 1781.

Fulton (No. 6785) points out that this work contains the “most complete bibliographical study of the literature of head injury that had been brought together up to that time”. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: BIBLIOGRAPHY › Bibliographical Classics, NEUROLOGY › History of Neurology, NEUROSURGERY › Head Injuries, NEUROSURGERY › History of Neurosurgery
  • 5422

The new method in inoculating for the small pox.

Philadelphia: C. Cist, 1781.


Subjects: INFECTIOUS DISEASE › Smallpox › Variolation or Inoculation, U.S.: CONTENT OF PUBLICATIONS BY STATE & TERRITORY › Pennsylvania
  • 6255

L’art des accouchemens. 2 vols.

Paris: Méquignon, 1781.

Baudelocque invented a pelvimeter and advanced the knowledge of pelvimetry and of the mechanism of labor. The external conjugate diameter is known as “Baudelocque’s diameter”. English translation, London, 1790.



Subjects: OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGY › OBSTETRICS, OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGY › OBSTETRICS › Pelvis: Pelvic Anomalies
  • 9586

L’art de soigner les pieds, contenant: Un traité sur les cors, verrues, durillons, oignons, engelures, les accidens de ongles & leur difformité.

Paris: L'Auteur, 1781.

Laforest was the first to describe and illustrate the condition of hallux valgus. The second edition of this work (1782), "Augmentée d’un chapitre sur la manière de soigner les pieds des soldats en garnison & dans les mouvemens, & de deux planches pour l’intelligence de cet ouvrage, " was the first illustrated book on podiatry. Translated into English by D. Low, who falsely claimed authorship, and published as Chiropodologia, or a scientific enqury into the causes of corns, warts, onions, and other painful or offensive cutaneous excrescences (1785). Digital facsimile of the 1781 edition from Google Books at this link; of the 1782 edition from the Internet Archive at this link; of the 1785 translation from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: Podiatry
  • 10230

Some account of the termites, which are found in Africa and other hot climates. In a letter from Mr. Henry Smeathman...to Sir Joseph Banks, Bart.

Phil. Trans., 71, 139-192., 1781.

Pioneering study of tropical termites, their mounds, and their behavior, well illustrated with engravings. Digital facsimile from the Royal Society at this link.



Subjects: COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › Africa, ZOOLOGY › Arthropoda › Entomology
  • 10715

Instrumentarium chirurgicum Viennense oder, Wiennerische chirurgische Instrumenten-Sammlung.

Vienna: Matthias Andreas Schmidt, 1781.

Brambilla was a personal physician to Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II and the first director of the Vienna hospital and the Josefinum school for military surgeons (now a medical museum). Brambilla provided a history of surgical instruments from antiquity to his own time. His work includes 67 plates illustrating over 600 surgical and dental instruments in their original size. Brambilla commissioned three sets of instruments corresponding to the plates in his book. These instrument sets are preserved at the Museo Gaileo, at Vienna, and at the University of Pavia museum. Digital facsimile from the Bayerische StaatsBibliothek at this link.



Subjects: INSTRUMENTS & TECHNOLOGIES › Surgical Instruments, SURGERY: General › History of Surgery
  • 11601

A complete collection of the medical and philosophical works of John Fothergill. With an account of his life; and occasional notes, by John Elliot.

London: John Walker, 1781.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: BIOGRAPHY (Reference Works) › Biographies of Individuals, CARDIOLOGY › CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE › Coronary Artery Disease › Angina Pectoris, Collected Works: Opera Omnia, NEUROLOGY › Chronic Pain, NEUROLOGY › Chronic Pain › Headache › Migraine, NEUROLOGY › Chronic Pain › Trigeminal Neuralgia
  • 12495

A view of society and manners in Italy, with anecdotes related to some eminent characters. 2 vols.

London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1781.

Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.



Subjects: COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › Italy, VOYAGES & Travels by Physicians, Surgeons & Scientists
  • 13004

Herbier ou collection des plantes médicinales de la Chine: D'après un manuscrit peint et unique qui se trouve dans la Bibliothèque de l'Empereur de la Chine, pour servir suitte [sic] à la collection des fleurs qui se cultivent dans les Jardins de la Chine et de l'Europe.

Paris: chez l'Auteur, 1781.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: BOTANY › Medical Botany, COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › China, People's Republic of, PHARMACOLOGY › PHARMACEUTICALS › Materia medica / Herbals / Herbal Medicines
  • 13253

Tentamen resolvendi problema ab Academia Scientiarum Imperial Petropoitana ad annum 1780 public propositum. 1) Qualis fit natura et character sonorum litterarum vocalium a, e, i, o, u tam insigniter inter se diversorum. 2) Annon construi qutans instrumenta ordini tuiborum organicorum, sub termino vocis humane noto, similia, quae literarum vaclium a, e, i, o, u sonos exprimant.

St. Petersburg, Russia: Typis Academiae Scientiarum, 1781.

In the first part of this work Kratzenstein described how the vowels could be produced in the vocal tract. In the  second part he described the construction of a new kind of organ with pipes for each of the vowels. Each pipe had a characteristic resonant cavity which should emulate the vocal tract for the corresponding vowel. In order to excite these resonators he made use of free reeds which at that time were little known. Kratzenstein demonstrated this instrument in Saint Petersburg in 1780; it was damaged and disappeared shortly afterwards. Digital facsimile from digitale-sammlungen.de at this link.



Subjects: Speech, Anatomy and Physiology of › Speech Synthesis
  • 13421

A catalogue of the entire and valuable library of John Fothergill...Containing a fine collection of books in physick, natural history and classics; aslo some good prints, and an elegant collection of drawings in natural history, by some of the most approved masters.

London: Leigh and Sotheby, 1781.

Digital facsimile from wellcomelibrary.org at this link.



Subjects: BIBLIOGRAPHY › Catalogues of Physicians' / Scientists' Libraries
  • 1384

De peculiari structura cerebri, nonnulisque ejus morbis.

Parma : ex. reg. typog, 1782.

Gennari was the first to demonstrate the laminar structure of the cerebral cortex when he discovered the line of Gennari, a macroscopically white band in the cerebral cortex of the occipital lobe.
This he observed on 2 February 1776 in the course of examining frozen sections of unstained human brain while in medical school. He referred to it as lineola albidior. Gennari's discovery was the first evidence that the cerebral cortex is not uniform in structure.



Subjects: NEUROSCIENCE › NERVOUS SYSTEM › Brain, including Medulla: Cerebrospinal Fluid
  • 1835

Observations on the medical uses of the oleum jecoris aselli, or cod liver oil, in the chronic rheumatism, and other painful disorders.

Lond. med. J. 3, 392-401, 1782.

First record of the clinical use of cod liver oil in England.



Subjects: PAIN / Pain Management, PHARMACOLOGY › PHARMACEUTICALS › Cod Liver Oil, RHEUMATOLOGY › Gout (Podagra)
  • 5104.1

Voyage aux Indes Orientales et à la Chine, fait par ordre du Roi depuis 1774 jusqu’en 1781. 2 vols.

Paris: L'Auteur, 1782.

Vol. 1, pp. 113-16, “No author before the time of Sonnerat gives us so distinct an account of the epidemic prevalence of cholera, so full a description of its varieties or has attributed it so positively to the physical misery of the natives of the country” (Macpherson, No. 5111.2). English translation, 1788-89.



Subjects: COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › China, People's Republic of, COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › Indonesia, INFECTIOUS DISEASE › Cholera, VOYAGES & Travels by Physicians, Surgeons & Scientists
  • 4920

Observation on the nature, kinds, causes and prevention of insanity, lunacy, or madness. 2 vols.

Leicester, England: G. Ireland, 17821786.

Best historical account to the time. 2nd ed., 1806.



Subjects: PSYCHIATRY, PSYCHIATRY › History of Psychiatry
  • 5152

Mémoire sur la morve.

Hist. Soc. roy. Med. (Paris), (1779), 3, pt. 2, 361-91, 1782.

Chabert, the most celebrated veterinarian of his time, left a fine account of glanders.



Subjects: VETERINARY MEDICINE › Glanders
  • 7376

Natuurkundige verhandelingen van Petrus Camper over den orang outang; en eenige andere aap-soorten. Over den rhinoceros met den dubbelen horen; en over het rendier.

Amsterdam: P. Meijer & G. Warnars, 1782.

Having dissected five orang-outang cadavers, Camper showed that the Bornean orang-outang was a previously undescribed species, and showed that the structure of its vocal organs did not permit speech. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: COMPARATIVE ANATOMY, ZOOLOGY › Illustration, ZOOLOGY › Mammalogy › Primatology
  • 7581

Nummorum veterum populorum et urbium, qui in museo Gulielmi Hunter asservantur, descriptio figuris illustrata. Opera et studio Caroli Combe . . .

London: J. Nichols, 1782.

The only published installment of the catalogue of William Hunter's magnificent collection of coins, a collection regarded as one of the finest in the world. Hunter began collecting coins around 1770, and by the time of his death had spent over £22,000 on this pursuit— an enormous sum of money by the standards of the day. After Hunter's death, by the terms of his will, the coin collection, together with Hunter's books, pictures and anatomical models, remained in the care of three trustees for thirty years, after which time they became the property of the University of Glasgow.

Nummorum veterum populorum et urbium was compiled by Charles Combe (1743-1817), a physician and coin dealer who became acquainted with Hunter in 1773, and greatly assisted Hunter in forming his collection. Combe was one of the three trustees appointed in Hunter's will to administer his collections, the other two being Dr. George Fordyce and Dr. David Pitcairne. Combe had originally intended to prepare a catalogue of the complete Hunterian coin collection, but was able to publish only this installment. The work is illustrated with 68 plates that Combe took care to make "more faithful to the original coins than the illustrations in previous numismatic works" (DNB). Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.



Subjects: MUSEUMS
  • 7663

A descriptive catalogue (giving a full explanation) of Rackstrow's Museum : consisting of a large and very valuable collection of most curious anatomical figures, and real preparations; also figures resembling life; with a great variety of natural and artificial curiosities to be seen at No. 197, Fleet-Street ... London.

London, 1782.

Digital facsimile of the 1792 printing from the Internet Archive at this link.



Subjects: MUSEUMS › Medical, Anatomical & Pathological
  • 8040

Traité des maladies vermineuses dans les animaux.

Paris: De l'Imprimerie Royale, 1782.

Includes two plates printed in color by Edouard Dagoty. These were not included in later editions.  Digital facsimile of th 1782 edition from the Internet Archive at this link; of the 1787 edition at this link.



Subjects: VETERINARY MEDICINE, VETERINARY MEDICINE › Veterinary Parasitology
  • 11095

Deliciae Cobresianae. J. P. Cobres Büchersammlung zur Naturgeschichte. 2 vols.

Augsburg: auf Kosten des Verfassers, 1782.

Privately printed catalogue of Cobres’ natural history library, comprising descriptions, with collations and notes, of about 2500 books on botany, zoology, geology, etc. The catalogue is divided into subject sections and includes sections on conchology, microscopy and ‘Musea’ or Wunderkammern. On this topic it lists 107 titles listed, and is one of the earliest bibliographies of museum catalogues.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.



Subjects: BIBLIOGRAPHY › Catalogues of Physicians' / Scientists' Libraries, MUSEUMS › Natural History Museums / Wunderkammern, NATURAL HISTORY › History of Natural History
  • 14120

Unterricht für Krankenwärter zum Gebrauch öffentlicher Vorlesungen.

Mannheim: in der Schwanischen Buchhandlung, 1782.

The first German book on nursing--a manual of instructions for male nurses. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

(Thanks for Webb Dordick for this reference.)



Subjects: NURSING
  • 1385

Observations on the structure and functions of the nervous system.

Edinburgh: W. Creech, 1783.

Monro discovered the communication between the lateral ventricles of the human brain with each other and with the third ventricle, the “foramen of Monro”. Alexander secundus was the greatest of the three Monros.



Subjects: NEUROSCIENCE › NERVOUS SYSTEM, NEUROSCIENCE › NERVOUS SYSTEM › Brain, including Medulla: Cerebrospinal Fluid
  • 1774

Observations on the weather and diseases of London. In his Works, 1, 145-240

London, 1783.


Subjects: Bioclimatology, COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › England (United Kingdom)
  • 3360

Vox oculis. A dissertation on the … art of imparting speech to the naturally deaf; with a particular account of the academy of Messrs. Braidwood …

London, 1783.

Thomas Braidwood (1715-1806) founded the first British school for the deaf and dumb, in Edinburgh. His method consisted of a combination of lip-reading and signs.



Subjects: OTOLOGY › Deaf-Mute Education
  • 3676.2

Practical observations on the human teeth.

London: J. Johnson, 1783.

Woofendale was the first professional dentist to travel to the American colonies (1766) and to set up practice there. During his two years of practice in America he may have made the first set of artificial teeth contructed in what is now the United States. He returned to England in 1769. The above work was “the most important [English] dental text of the time after Berdmore’s” (Ring).



Subjects: DENTISTRY
  • 5579

A system of surgery. 6 vols.

Edinburgh: C. Elliot, 17831788.

Bell studied under the Monros at Edinburgh. He was surgeon to the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh, for 29 years. He improved the methods of amputation, introducing the “triple incision of Bell”. Above is his best work.



Subjects: ORTHOPEDICS › Orthopedic Surgery & Treatments › Amputations: Excisions: Resections, SURGERY: General
  • 5992

Bibliothecae ophthalmicae specimen primum eruditorum examini subjicit.

Hamburg: J. P. C. Reuse, 1783.

The earliest bibliography and history of ophthalmology.



Subjects: BIBLIOGRAPHY › Bibliographical Classics, BIBLIOGRAPHY › Bibliographies of Specific Subjects, OPHTHALMOLOGY › History of Ophthalmology
  • 6748

Medicinische Bibliothek. 3 vols.

Göttingen: J. C. Dieterich, 17831795.

Includes detailed abstracts of periodical literature.



Subjects: BIBLIOGRAPHY › Bibliographical Classics
  • 8923

A system of vegetables, according to their classes, orders, genera, species with their characters and differences.... Translated from the thirteenth edition (As published by Dr. Murray) of the Systema vegetabilium of the late professor Linneus; and from the Supplementum plantarum of the present professor Linneus. By a Botanical Society, at Lichfield. 2 vols. [Edited by Erasmus Darwin.]

Lichfield, England: Printed by John Jackson & London: Leigh and Sotheby, 1783.

English translation of Linneus's Species plantarum (No. 99.1), edited by Charles Darwin's grandfather. Digital facsimile from the Biodiversity Heritage Library, Internet Archive, at this link.



Subjects: BOTANY › Classification / Systemization of Plants
  • 12037

Lettera dell' Abate Spallanzani al Sig. Marchese Lucchesini.

Opuscoli scelti sulle scienze e sulle arti, 6 pt.2, 73-104, 1783.

Records on pp. 80-104 Spallanzani's work on the torpedo. In the 1780's Spallanzani turned to marine biology, making several trips to the Mediterranean region. On his visit to Portovenere in 1783 "he instituted the first marine zoologial laboratory. . . . He refuted the claim that the torpedo fish was attracted by magnets, intrepidly showing that its greatest shock was delivered when the fish was laid on a glass plate. Excising the heart did not lessen the shock until the circulation began to fail "(DSB).



Subjects: PHYSIOLOGY › Electrophysiology, ZOOLOGY › Ichthyology
  • 12164

Aphorisms in the application and use of the forceps and vectis, on preternatural labours, on labours attended with hemorrhage and with convulsions.

London: [No publisher identified], 1783.

Denman "was the first physician whose authority made the practice general in England of inducing premature labour in cases of narrow pelvis and other conditions, in which the mother's life is imperilled by the attempt to deliver at the full-time" (DNB). This handbook emphasizing the solution to obstretric complications underwent 7 editions in England, 3 American editions, and a translation into French. Digital facsimile of the first American edition (1803) from the U.S. National Library of Medicine at this link.



Subjects: OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGY › OBSTETRICS
  • 12689

Memoirs of Albert de Haller, M.D. Member of the Sovereign Council of Berne; President of the University, and of the Royal Society of Gottingen; Fellow of the Royal Society of London, &c. Compiled, chiefly, from the elogium spoken before the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, and from the tributes paid to his memory by other foreign societies. By Thomas Henry.

Warrington, England: W. Eyres, 1783.

This is illustrated with a small cameo portrati of Haller drawn and engraved by William Blake. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: BIOGRAPHY (Reference Works) › Biographies of Individuals, PHYSIOLOGY › History of Physiology
  • 13423

Bibliotheca Gaubiana, sive catalogus librorum, viri celeberrimi, Hieronymi Davidis Gaubii, dum in vivis esset medicinae doctoris, hujusque & chemiae professoris in academia Lugduno-Batava, serenissimi principis arausionensis & Nassaviae archiatri, variarum academiarum & societatum membri &c. &c. Quorum auctio siet per S. et J. Luchtmans.

Leiden: S. et J. Luchtmans, 1783.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.



Subjects: BIBLIOGRAPHY › Catalogues of Physicians' / Scientists' Libraries
  • 13867

A voyage from England to India, in the year MDCCLIV, and an historical narrative of the operations of the squadron and army in India, under the command of Vice-Admiral Watson and Colonel Clive, in the years 1755, 1756, 1757; including a correspondence between the Admiral and the Nabob Serajah Dowlah. Interspersed with some interesting passages relating to the manners, customs, &c. of several nations in Indostan. Also, a journey from Persia to England, by an unusual route. With an appendix, containing an account of the diseases prevalent in Admiral Watson's squadron, a description of most of the trees, shrubs, and plants of India, with their real, or supposed, medicinal virtues. Also a copy of a letter written by a late ingenious physician, on the disorders incidental to Europeans at Gombroon in the Gulf of Persia. Illustrated with a chart, maps, and other copper-plates.

London: E. & C. Dilly, 1783.

Digital facsimile from wellcomecollection.org at this link.



Subjects: COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › India, VOYAGES & Travels by Physicians, Surgeons & Scientists › History of Voyages & Travels by Physicians....
  • 925

Experiments on air.

Phil. Trans., 74, 119-53, 1784.

Cavendish isolated hydrogen in 1766, and later demonstrated the composition of air.



Subjects: Chemistry, RESPIRATION
  • 592

Mémoire sur la chaleur.

Hist. Acad. roy. Sci. (Paris), (1780), 335-408, 1784.

These workers invented an ice calorimeter, with it measured the respiratory quotient of a pig, and demonstrated the analogy between respiration and combustion.



Subjects: BIOCHEMISTRY › Metabolism, INSTRUMENTS & TECHNOLOGIES, RESPIRATION › Respiratory Physiology
  • 923

Mémoire sur la formation de l’acide, nommé air fixe ou acide crayeux, et que je désignerai désormais sous le nom d’acid du charbon.

Hist. Acad. roy. Sci. (1781), 448-67, 1784.


Subjects: BIOCHEMISTRY, Chemistry, RESPIRATION
  • 77

Sämmtliche kleinere Schriften. 3 vols.

Leipzig: S. L. Crusius, 17841790.

Camper, an artist of skill, made his mark as an anthropologist and craniologist. He discovered the processus vaginalis of the peritoneum and the fibrous structure of the eye, and made several other important contributions to medical science. English translation, 1794.



Subjects: ANATOMY › 18th Century, ANTHROPOLOGY, ANTHROPOLOGY › Craniology, Collected Works: Opera Omnia
  • 2137.1

Tentamen medicum de aerostatum usu medicinae applicando…

Montpellier: Picot, 1784.

The first work on aviation medicine, a pamphlet of 18pp. issued as a thesis for the medical degree, published one year after the first balloon ascent by Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier in 1783. Leulier Duché speculated on ways that ballooning might be used in medicine, quoting an anecdote privately communicated to him by Montgolfier describing the “high” experienced by the aeronauts on a particular ascent.



Subjects: AVIATION Medicine
  • 1732

On the uncertainty of the signs of murder, in the case of bastard children.

Med. Obs. & Inqu., London, 6, 266-90, London, 1784.

This essay on the signs of murder in illegitimate children is, in Garrison’s view, the most important early contribution to forensic medicine by a British writer.



Subjects: Forensic Medicine (Legal Medicine)
  • 215.3

Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit. 4 vols.

Riga, Latvia & Leipzig: Hartknoch, 17841791.

Herder’s history has long been regarded as a very strong statement of Darwinian evolution before Darwin: many single passages come close to the evolution theory. Among the passages most often regarded as anticipating Darwin are those on the temporal sequence of forms from simpler to more highly organized, and on the overabundance of nature with the ensuing struggle for existence between species and individuals.



Subjects: EVOLUTION
  • 2734.3

Three cases of mal-conformation of the heart.

Medical Observations & Inquiries, 6, 291-309, 1784.

Three cases of congenital heart disease recorded. Two plates are opposite pp. 417-18 of the journal.



Subjects: CARDIOLOGY › Congenital Heart Defects, GENETICS / HEREDITY › HEREDITARY / CONGENITAL DISEASES OR DISORDERS › Congenital Heart Defects
  • 3359

La véritable manière d’instruire les sourds et muets.

Paris: Nyon l’aîné, 1784.

The Abbé de L’Épée met two deaf girls, decided to educate them, and soon had a class of 60 devoted pupils, whom he supported and amongst whom he lived. He based his methods on those of Bonet and Amman, and was the first to attach great importance to signs. This is l’Épée’s most definitive work. It contains a reprint of No. 3358.



Subjects: OTOLOGY › Deaf-Mute Education
  • 4286

Observationes circa mutationes quas subeunt calculi in vesica.

Budapest: sumpt. J. M. Weingand, 1784.


Subjects: UROLOGY › Urinary Calculi
  • 4920.1

First lines on the practice of physic. 4th ed. Vol. 3.

Edinburgh: Charles Elliot, 1784.

Cullen introduced the term “neuroses” (pp. 121-23).



Subjects: PSYCHIATRY
  • 4992.2

Rapport des commissaires chargés par le roi, de l’examen du magnétisme animal. Edited by Antoine Laurent Lavoisier.

Paris: L’Imprimerie Royale, 1784.

Responding to Mesmer’s growing notoriety, the Medical Faculty of Paris became alarmed, and urged the King to appoint a blue-ribbon committee of inquiry. The committee included Benjamin Franklin, Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, Michael Joseph Majault, Jean Sylvain Bailly, Jean d'Arcet. Finding no evidence of a magnetic fluid, these scientists attributed the power of mesmerism to the “imagination” and so drove Mesmer from Paris. Lavoisier may have been the author of the report. English translation, London, 1785. Digital facsimile of the 1784 edition from BnFgallica at this link.



Subjects: Mesmerism, PSYCHOTHERAPY › Hypnosis, Quackery
  • 5645.91

A method of preventing or diminishing pain in several operations of surgery.

London: T. Cadell, 1784.

Moore revived the ancient concept of nerve compression, developing a special clamp for its use. John Hunter used Moore’s clamp in a leg amputation in 1784 in which analgesia was successfully obtained.



Subjects: ANESTHESIA, PAIN / Pain Management
  • 6706

Degli archiatri pontifici. 2 vols.

Rome: Nella Stamperia Pagliarini, 1784.

Biographies of papal physicians. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: BIOGRAPHY (Reference Works), RELIGION & Medicine & the Life Sciences
  • 6271

An inquiry into the nature and cause of that swelling, in one or both of the lower extremeties, which sometimes happens to lying-in-women.

Warrington, England: printed by W. Eyres, for C. Dilly in the Poultry London, 1784.

First clinical description of phlegmasia alba dolens. White ascribed it to destruction of the lymphatics due to pressure of the foetal head.



Subjects: OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGY › OBSTETRICS, OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGY › OBSTETRICS › Puerperal Fever
  • 2734.4
  • 4015
  • 4662
  • 5516
  • 6326

A treatise on the diseases of children.

London: J. Mathews, 1784.

Underwood laid the foundation of modern pediatrics. His work was superior to anything that had previously appeared and remained the most important book on the subject for sixty years, passing through many editions. The first edition (p.76) includes the first description of sclerema neonatorum (“Underwood’s disease”). That edition also contains a description of "aphthae of thrush."

In the second edition (1789, volume 2, pp. 122-27) Underwood presented a description of congenital heart disease in children. This was the first pediatric treatise to do so. Also, in the second edition, volume 2, pp. 53-57 entitled "Debility of the lower extremities," Underwood was the first to consider poliomyelitis as an entity.



Subjects: CARDIOLOGY, DERMATOLOGY, GENETICS / HEREDITY › HEREDITARY / CONGENITAL DISEASES OR DISORDERS › Congenital Heart Defects, INFECTIOUS DISEASE › Candidiasis, Mycology, Medical, NEUROLOGY › Inflammatory Conditions › Poliomyelitis, PEDIATRICS
  • 7194

Entwurf einer auserlesenen medicinischpraktischen Bibliothek für angehende Aerzte.

Dessau und Leipzig: Auf Kosten der Verlags, 1784.

An annotated bibliography of recommended books for the aspiring physician, arranged by subject, and chronologically by date of publication within each subject, with an author index at the end. Digital facsimile of the 1788 edition from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: BIBLIOGRAPHY › Bibliographical Classics
  • 10484

Dictamen del mismo doctor Don Joseph Masdevall dado de órden del rey sobre Si las fábricas de algodon y lana son perniciosas ó no á la salud pública de las ciudades donde están establecidas. IN: Relacion de las epidemias de calenturas putridas y malignas....

Madrid: En la Imprenta Real, 1784.

Digital facsimile of Masdevall's work on occupational medicine from helvia.uco.es at this link. Digital facsimile of the complete epidemiological work from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › Spain, EPIDEMIOLOGY, OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH & MEDICINE
  • 11618

Arctic zoology. 3 vols.

Printed by Henry Hughs, 17841787.

Pennant had "intended to write a "Zoology of North America" but as he explained in the "Advertisement", since he felt mortified by the loss of British control over America, this was changed to Arctic Zoology.[22] The book was published, with illustrations by Peter Brown, in 1785–1787. The first volume was on quadrupeds and the second on birds. Compilation of the latter was assisted by an expedition Sir Joseph Banks had made to Newfoundland in 1786. The work was translated into German and French, and part of it into Swedish. The volumes were much acclaimed and Pennant was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society. In 1787, a supplementary volume was published which included extra information on the reptiles and fishes of North America.[23] " (Wikipedia article on Thomas Pennant). 

Pennant never visited the regions described, but relied on information derived from the accounts of explorers such as Captain Cook, Hearne, and communications with other learned zoologists, including Peter Simon Pallas, and on specimens supplied from various private collections, such as that of Andrew Graham of Hudson's Bay, Thomas Hutchins, Ashton Blackburn, Alexander Garden, and Benjamin Smith Barton.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › Canada, COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › United States , ZOOLOGY, ZOOLOGY › Herpetology, ZOOLOGY › Ornithology
  • 11742

[Vols I and II:] Figures of non-descript shells collected in the different voyages to the South Seas since the year 1764 ... [Vols III and IV:] The universal conchologist, exhibiting the figure of every known shell, accurately drawn and painted after nature: With a new systematic arrangement by the author.... 4 vols.

London: Sold at his house no. 16 Great Marlborough Street, 17841812.

"The first two volumes, devoted to shells of the South Seas, were originally published as a separate work in 1784. Martyn then extended the work to four volumes with an additional 80 plates. ‘From the introduction to The universal conchologist we learn that it was 'to commence with the figures of shells (most of them rare and nondescript) which have been collected by several officers of the shipsunder the command of Captain Byron, Wallis, Cook, and others made to the South Sea' ... When the Resolution and the Discovery returned from the third and last voyage in 1780 [the dealer] Humphrey purchased some more shells, but the bulk of the conchological spoils went this time to Thomas Martyn, a knowledgeable dealer, versatile writer and gifted artist ... Unlike Humphrey and other dealers who snapped up the Cook shells Thomas Martyn had more than a pecuniary interest in his purchases. Martyn’s reason for wanting to corner the market in South Seas shells was entirely praiseworthy; although he sold many of the shells he had bought, he illustrated the finest in The Universal Conchologist, his magnum opus [and] a work which, for beauty, has seldom been surpassed in the history of conchological iconography’ (Dance, A history of shell collecting).

"Martyn purchased shells brought back from Cook’s third voyage, although, as he wrote to Henry Seymer on 9 December 1780, ‘I have purchased, amounting to 400 gns, more than 2 thirds of the whole brought home, Nevertheless I do not abound either in the variety of the new or many duplicates of the known ones that are valuable’. As a result, he modified his project and instead of presenting two shells on each plate, presented only one but depicted in two different views. Besides the specimens deriving from Cook’s voyages, Martyn included specimens from the collections of the Duchess of Portland, the Countess of Bute, John Hunter, the Forsters, and others. The fine plates were drawn by Martyn and engraved and coloured by his 'Academy' of young men whom he had trained as natural history artists. The plates, each showing a single species in two positions, were engraved in soft aquatint and printed lightly inked, so that when hand-coloured they would resemble watercolours" (William P. Watson, Science, medicine and natural history books exhibited at the New York International Antiquarian Bookfair...2020).



Subjects: NATURAL HISTORY › Art & Natural History, ZOOLOGY › Malacology
  • 13363

Des maladies des créoles en Europe avec la maniere de les traiter et des observations sur celles des gens de mer et sur quelques autres plus fréquemment observées dans les climats chauds.

Paris: Valade, 1784.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › Caribbean, Maritime Medicine, TROPICAL Medicine
  • 13467

A treatise on the glandular disease of Barbadoes: Proving it to be seated in the lymphatic system.

London: C. Dilly, 1784.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › Barbados, COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › Caribbean, INFECTIOUS DISEASE › VECTOR-BORNE DISEASES › Mosquito-Borne Diseases › Lymphatic Filariasis (Elephantiasis)
  • 14051

Abrégé historique des hopitaux, contenant leur origine, les différentes especes d’hopitaux, d’hospitaliers et hospitalieres, et les suppressions et changemens faits dans les hôpitaux, en France, par les édits et réglemens de nos rois .…

Paris: Chez Guillot, 1784.

A history of hospitals in France from the earliest times, through charitable care for the poor by monks and nuns, to their evolution through legislation of the 16th and 17yh centuries. Includes a list of charitable institutions for the care of the poor no longer in existence by Recalde's time, arranged alphabetically by town from Aix to Verdun, and articles drawn from 17th and 18th century legislation, covering  hospital personnel, the keeping of records and accounts, attendance to the sick by doctors, surgeons and their students, bandaging of the wounded, patients’ diet (comprising meat of good quality, bread, cereal, red or white wine or beer, salt, vinegar, eggs, rice, and prunes), hospital beds and linen; spring cleaning (whitewashing, eradicating insects etc.)



Subjects: HOSPITALS › History of Hospitals
  • 14210

Die Deutsche [sic] Giftpflanzen, zur Verhütung der tragischen Vorfälle in den Haushaltungen, nach ihren botanischen Kennzeichen, nebst den Heilungsmitteln.

Berlin: Joachim Pauli, 1784.

On poisonous plants in Germany, for prevention of tragic household accidents, and remedies for the poisons. Illustrated with 16 plates. 
Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: BOTANY › Medical Botany, Household or Self-Help Medicine, TOXICOLOGY
  • 2158
  • 3715

Observations on the diseases incident to seamen.

London: J. Cooper, 1785.

William Hunter recommended Blane as private physician to Admiral Rodney; Blane sailed with him to the W. Indies and became physician to the British Fleet. He was held in great esteem in the navy and was instrumental in effecting improvements in living conditions among seamen. He strongly supported Lind’s views on scurvy. In 1799 he made recommendations which formed the basis of the Quarantine Act of that year. Later he became physician to St. Thomas’s Hospital. With Lind he stands predominant in the history of naval medicine.

Although Blane added nothing to the knowledge on scurvy, he demonstrated the value of fresh lemons, limes, and oranges; through his influence the issue of lemon juice in the British Navy was ordered in 1795, after which scurvy soon disappeared. Blane’s extreme coldness of manner earned him the nickname “Chilblain”.



Subjects: MILITARY MEDICINE, SURGERY & HYGIENE › Navy, Maritime Medicine, NUTRITION / DIET › Deficiency Diseases › Scurvy
  • 924

Mémoire sur l’affinité du principe oxygine avec les différentes substances auxquelles il est susceptible de s’unir.

Hist. Acad. roy. Sci., (1782), 530-40, 1785.


Subjects: Chemistry, RESPIRATION
  • 1836.1

Arbustrum Americanum: the American grove, or, an alphabetical catalogue of forest trees and shrubs…

Philadelphia: Joseph Cruikshank, 1785.

Like his cousin, John Bartram (No. 1832), Marshall maintained a private botanical garden. According to W. Darlington the above work is “the first truly indigenous botanical essay published in the Western Hemisphere”. It contains some information about medicines.



Subjects: BOTANY › Dendrology, COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › United States , COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › United States › American Northeast, U.S.: CONTENT OF PUBLICATIONS BY STATE & TERRITORY › Pennsylvania
  • 2279

Von den Krankheiten des Bauchfells und dem Schlagfluss.

Berlin: G. J. Decker, 1785.

Text in Latin and German. Includes an accurate description of peritonitis.



Subjects: PATHOLOGY
  • 1836
  • 2734.31

An account of the foxglove, and some of its medical uses.

Birmingham, England: G. G. J. & J. Robinson, 1785.

Before  publication of Withering's book digitalis was a widely used folk remedy, occasionally mentioned in the literature. Withering established the correct dosages, and the action of digitalis in edema and on the heart became generally recognized. Withering did not know of the distinction between renal and cardiac edema. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link The copy reproduced does not appear to contain the engraving of the purple foxglove.

 



Subjects: CARDIOLOGY › CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE, CARDIOLOGY › CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE › Cardiogenic Edema, PHARMACOLOGY › PHARMACEUTICALS › Botanic Sources of Single Component Drugs › Digitalis, PHARMACOLOGY › PHARMACEUTICALS › Cardiovascular Medications
  • 7639

Toxicologia seu doctrina de venenis et antidotis.

Vienna: Rudolf Graeffer, 1785.

Plenck provided the first classification of poisons based on origin: 1. Animal poisons. 2. Vegetable poisons. 3. Mineral poisons. 4. Poisonous vapors, gases, and dust. Plenck also issued this work in German from the same publisher during the same year as Toxikologie oder Lehre von den Giften und Gegengiften. Digital facsimile of the Latin edition from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.



Subjects: TOXICOLOGY
  • 8943

Entomologia Parisiensis; sive, catalogus insectorum quae in agro Parisiensi reperiuntur; secondum methodum Geoffraeanam in sections, genera & species distributus; Cui addit sun nomina trivalia & sere recentae novae species.

Paris: Via et Aedibus Serpentineis, 1785.

In this work co-written with Geoffroy, Fourcroy presented a major contribution to the systemization of entomology. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.



Subjects: COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › France, ZOOLOGY › Arthropoda › Entomology
  • 11450

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.

[Paris]: [For the author by Philippe-Denis Pierres], 1785.

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 Philadelphia. Joseph Jones forwarded the questionnaire received by the Virginia delegation to Jefferson, who was then completing his term as Governor of Virginia.

By the time the book was first published Jefferson was serving as U.S. trade representative in Paris, having been sent there in 1784. Jefferson issued the first edition of this work privately, and anonymously, in Paris in 1785, in an edition limited to 200 copies. The first edition begins with an unconventional first page that combines a statement of the title with a table of contents, and no place, publisher or publication date specified. A conventionally printed French translation by the Abbé André Morellet appeared in 1786. The first conventionally published English-language edition was issued by John Stockdale in London in 1787. In her catalogue of The Library of Thomas Jefferson  Sowerby devoted 30 pages to her description and annotations of this work (Vol. 4, no. 4167; pp. 301-330).

Jefferson divided the text into 23 chapters called "Queries," each describing a different aspect of the state of Virginia. They are:

  1. Boundaries of Virginia
  2. Rivers
  3. Sea Ports
  4. Mountains
  5. Cascades
  6. Productions mineral, vegetable and animal
  7. Climate
  8. Population
  9. Military force
  10. Marine force
  11. Aborigines
  12. Counties and towns
  13. Constitution
  14. Laws
  15. Colleges, buildings, and roads
  16. Proceedings as to Tories
  17. Religion
  18. Manners
  19. Manufactures
  20. Subjects of commerce
  21. Weights, Measures and Money
  22. Public revenue and expenses
  23. Histories, memorials, and state-papers

 When I wrote this entry in January 2020 I did not find a digital facsimile of the first edition online; however the Massachusetts Historical Society preserves and has digitized Jefferson's autograph manuscript for the work. It is available from masshist.org at this link.



Subjects: ANTHROPOLOGY, NATURAL HISTORY, U.S.: CONTENT OF PUBLICATIONS BY STATE & TERRITORY › Virginia
  • 13086

Observations générales sur les maladies des climats chauds, leurs causes, leur traitement, et les moyens de les prévenir.

Paris: Pierre-François Didot le Jeune & Saint-Domingue: Dufour de Riams, Imprimeur du Roi au Cap., 1785.

Digital facsimile from BnF Gallica at this link.



Subjects: BLACK PEOPLE & MEDICINE & BIOLOGY, COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › Caribbean, Slavery and Medicine
  • 14118

Catalogue raisonné des ouvrages qui ont été publiés sur les eaux minérales en général et sur celles de la France en particulier, avec un notice doutes des eaux minérales de ce royaume, et un tableau des différens degrés de température de celles qui son thermales.

Paris: Chez Rémont, 1785.

The earliest bibliography of mineral springs. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

(Thanks to Webb Dordick for this reference.)



Subjects: BIBLIOGRAPHY › Bibliographies of Specific Subjects, THERAPEUTICS › Balneotherapy
  • 309

Observations on certain parts of the animal oeconomy.

London: Sold at No. 13, Castle Street, Leicester Square, 1786.

Includes John Hunter’s observations on the secondary sexual characteristics in birds, on the descent of the testis, on the air sac in birds, on the structure of the placenta, etc., together with the original description of the olfactory nerves. Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.



Subjects: ANATOMY › 18th Century, COMPARATIVE ANATOMY, ZOOLOGY › Ornithology
  • 401.2

Traité d’anatomie et de physiologie avec des planches coloriées répresentant au naturel les divers organes de l’homme et des animaux. Tome premier [all published].

Paris: François Ambroise Didot I’aîné, 1786.

The most accurate neuroanatomical work produced before the advent of microscopic staining techniques. Vicq d’Azyr identified accurately for the first time many of the cerebral convolutions, along with various internal structures of the brain. This was the first volume of an ambitious study of anatomy and physiology which remained unfinished at Vicq d’Azyr’s premature death.



Subjects: ANATOMY › 18th Century, ANATOMY › Neuroanatomy
  • 1103

The anatomy of the absorbing vessels of the human body.

London: G. Nicol, 1786.

With Hunter and Hewson, Cruikshank laid the foundation of modern knowledge concerning the lymphatics. He was Dr. Johnson’s physician and William Hunter’s assistant.



Subjects: ANATOMY › 18th Century, Lymphatic System
  • 2137.2

A narrative of the two aerial voyages of Dr. Jeffries with Mons. Blanchard; with meteorological observations and remarks.

London: J. Robson, 1786.

The first flight by a physician, the first crossing of the English channel by balloon, and the first international flight. Jeffries, an American, made a series of carefully planned scientific observations, emphasizing meteorology.



Subjects: AVIATION Medicine, VOYAGES & Travels by Physicians, Surgeons & Scientists
  • 2466

Animalcula infusoria fluviatilia et marina, quae detexit, systematice descripsit et ad vivum delineari.

Copenhagen: N. Mölleri, 1786.

Müller was the first to attempt a systematic classification of infusoria. He published several papers on the subject, the best being the above posthumous work. Muller described 8 species of the genus Vibrio (included in Infusoria).



Subjects: BACTERIOLOGY › BACTERIA (mostly pathogenic; sometimes indexed only to genus) › Gram-Negative Bacteria › Vibrio , BACTERIOLOGY › Bacteria, Classification of, MICROBIOLOGY, ZOOLOGY › Protistology (formerly Protozoology)
  • 3716

Observations on the scurvy.

Edinburgh: C. Eliot & G. G. J. & J. Robinson, 1786.


Subjects: NUTRITION / DIET › Deficiency Diseases › Scurvy
  • 3752

De pellagra. 3 vols.

Milan: J. B. Bianchi, 17861789.

By 1776, pellagra had attained serious proportions in Italy; Strambio was placed in charge of a hospital for the treatment of pellagrins, and he left an important account of the disease. He and Casal y Julian (No. 3750) first pointed out that pellagra might occur without the cutaneous lesions, till then regarded as characteristic.



Subjects: NUTRITION / DIET › Deficiency Diseases › Pellagra
  • 2925

An account of Mr. Hunter’s method of performing the operation for the popliteal aneurism.

London Medical Journal, 7, 391-406, 1786.

First description of John Hunter’s method of treating popliteal aneurysm. This consisted in a single ligature of the artery at a distance high in the healthy tissues. Recorded by his brother-in law. See also Trans. Soc. Improve. medKnowl.,1793, 1,138. Reprinted in Medical Classics, 1940, 4,449-57.



Subjects: CARDIOLOGY › CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE › Arterial Disease, VASCULAR SURGERY › Ligations
  • 4016

Aetiologie der Krätze.

Hannover: Gebr. Helwing, 1786.

Wichmann definitely established the parasitic aetiology of scabies.



Subjects: DERMATOLOGY › Specific Dermatoses
  • 5833

Essai sur l’éducation des aveugles, ou exposé des différens moyens, vérifiés par l'expérience, pour les mettre en état de lire, à l'aide du tact, d'imprimer des livres dans lesquels ils puissent prendre des connoissances, de langues, d'histoire, de géographie, de musique, &c., d'exécuter différens travaux relatifs aux métiers, &c.

Paris: Imprimé par les Enfans-Aveugles, 1786.

Haüy founded the first school for the blind. To him belongs the honor of being the first to emboss paper as a means of creating raised type that could be read by the blind. His Essai originated modern methods of teaching and caring for blind persons. English translation by the celebrated blind poet, Thomas Blacklock (1721-91), who lost his sight at the age of 6 months, in Poems by the late Reverend Dr. Thomas Blacklock, together with an essay on the education of the blind. To which is prefixed a new account of the life and writings of the author, Edinburgh, 1793. Digital facsimile of the 1786 edition from BnF Gallica at this link.



Subjects: OPHTHALMOLOGY › Blind Education
  • 2377
  • 5197

A treatise on the venereal disease.

London: Sold at No. 13, Castle Street, Leicester Square, 1786.

In Hunter's day venereal diseases were thought to be due to a single poison. To test this theory Hunter experimented with matter taken from a gonorrhoeal patient who, unknown to Hunter, also had syphilis. Hunter maintained that gonorrhoea and syphilis were caused by a single pathogen. Backed by the weight of his authority, this experiment retarded the development of knowledge regarding the two diseases. Contrary to legend, however, there is no proof that Hunter actually inoculated himself with venereal disease. The hard (“Hunterian”) chancre eponymizes Hunter; his book also contains the first suggestion of lymphogranuloma venereum as a separate disease, and this work also makes a major contribution to urological surgery. Hunter issued this book at his private press at his anatomy school, the address for which he provided on the title page. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: INFECTIOUS DISEASE › SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES, INFECTIOUS DISEASE › SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES › Syphilis, UROLOGY
  • 6749

Introductio in historiam medicinae litterarium.

Gottingen: J. C. Dieterich, 1786.

An annotated subject bibliography of the history of medicine, arranged chronologically from antiquity to Blumenbach’s time.



Subjects: BIBLIOGRAPHY › Bibliographical Classics
  • 7806

Tableau des variétés de la vie humaine. 2 vols.

Paris: L'Auteur, 1786.

Massive and early study of puberty among Europeans, with comparative data including mortality tables. Daignan was especially interested in the plight of urban youth. He concluded his work with tables of life expectancy based on variables of age, constitution, stature, physique, climate and soil, sex, occupation and disease. He reported the survey of 10,000 individuals with respect to mortality according to sex, age and occupation. Digital facsimile from BnF Gallica at this link.



Subjects: DEMOGRAPHY / Population: Medical Statistics
  • 10266

Idées sur les secours à donner aux pauvres malades dans une grande ville.

Philadelphia & Paris: Moutard, 1786.

Dupont proposed replacing large city hospitals with smaller institutions similar to those then being tried in England. Du Pont studied medicine before devoting himself to political economy. Digital facsimile from BnF Gallica at this link.



Subjects: HOSPITALS
  • 11099

Des moyens de conserver la santé des blancs et des négres, aux Antilles ou climats chauds et humides de l'Amerique. Contenant un exposé des causes des malades propres....

Saint-Domingue & Paris: Méguignon l'aîné, 1786.

Bertin practiced medicine in the West Indies, and wrote about the physical effects of the voyage there, the causes of diseases and their cures, and the effects of the Caribbean climate and humidity on health. The imprint suggests that Bertin wrote the book in Santo Domingo (Haiti), and likely hoped to market it there, as it was of practical use in the West Indies. Digital facsimile (of a copy lacking the title page) from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › Caribbean, COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › Haiti, Slavery and Medicine
  • 11534

The first American edition, An abridgement of the practice of midwifery: and a set of anatomical tables.

Boston: J. Norman, 1786.

An abridgement of Smellie's obstetrical writings, with plates engraved by the editor and publisher, John Norman, was the first medical book with engraved illustrations published in North America, and also the first book on obstetrics published in the United States. Digital facsimile of the 1786 edition from Internet Archive at this link.



Subjects: INSTRUMENTS & TECHNOLOGIES › Medical Instruments › Forceps, Illustration, Medical, OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGY › OBSTETRICS
  • 11711

Aphorismi de cognoscendis et curandis febribus.

Vienna: Typis Josephi Nobils de Kurzbek, 1786.

Stoll was one of the few physicians of the Viennese school who supported Auenbrugger's views on percussion. In this treatise on fevers Stoll referred favorably to the practice, and it is thought that Corvisart became familiar with the procedure when he translated this work into French. Corvisart's edition of Stoll appeared eleven years later as Aphorismes sur la connaissance et la curation des fievres (Paris, 1797).

Digital facsimile of the 1786 edition from Google Books at this link. Digital facsimile of the 1797 edition from wellcomecollection.org at this link.



Subjects: INFECTIOUS DISEASE, Medicine: General Works, PHYSICAL DIAGNOSIS › Percussion
  • 13176

Académie Royale des Sciences. Extrait des registres . . . du 22 novembre 1786. Rapport des commissaires charges par l'Académie, de l'examen du project d'un nouvel Hotel-Dieu.

Paris: De l'Imprimerie Royale, 1786.

Lavoisier was a member of the committee appointed by the French Academy of Sciences to report on the state of Parisian hospitals and on the plan to construct a new hospital on the Isle des Cygnes. The committee's report described the wretched conditions found in the Hôtel-Dieu-- overcrowding, filth, indiscriminate mixing of contagious and non-contagious diseases, high mortality rate-- and called for immediate reform; however, the committee rejected the Isle de Cygnes plan in favor of four smaller hospitals, which the King ordered to be constructed on June 22, 1787. The report was signed by Lassone, d'Aubenton, Tenon, Bailly, Lavoisier, LaPlace, Coulomb, and d'Arcet. Digital facsimile from BnF Gallica at this link.



Subjects: HOSPITALS
  • 14119

Manuel pour le service des malades, ou précis des connoissances nécessaires aux personnes chargées du soin des malades, femmes en couche, enfans nouveaux-nés, &c.

Paris: Chez Lamy, 1786.

The first French book on nursing. Digital facsimile of the 1787 edition from the Internet Archive at this link.

(Thanks to Webb Dordick for this reference.)



Subjects: NURSING
  • 1104

Vasorum lymphaticorum corporis humani historia et ichnographia.

Siena: ex typ. P. Carli, 1787.

Mascagni, Professor of Anatomy at Siena, made several discoveries regarding the lymphatics. His beautiful atlas contained 41 engravings of the lymphatics and gained him lasting fame. He had previously published a Prodrome, in French, 1784; this contained only four plates.



Subjects: ANATOMY › 18th Century, ANATOMY › Anatomical Illustration, Lymphatic System
  • 1837

Materia medica Americana, potissimum regni vegetabilis.

Erlangen: J. J. Palmii, 1787.

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.



Subjects: BOTANY › Ethnobotany, COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › United States , NATIVE AMERICANS & Medicine, PHARMACOLOGY › PHARMACEUTICALS › Materia medica / Herbals / Herbal Medicines
  • 2467

Dell’arte de fare il vino.

Florence, 1787.

Fabbroni was the first to promote modern ideas on the nature of fermentation. He showed that air was not considered necessary for fermentation to take place; he was first to regard the ferment as an albumenoid substance. Pasteur considered Fabbroni’s work the beginning of modern ideas on the subject. Fabbroni’s theory of the fermentation of wine was influential throughout the 19th century. Several of the terms used by him are in use today.



Subjects: Winemaking (Oenology), Zymology (Zymurgy) (Fermentation)
  • 156.1

An essay on the causes of the variety of complexion and figure in the human species.

Philadelphia: Robert Aitken, 1787.

In the first significant anthropological work produced in America, Smith argued that racial differences were produced by environment, contradicting the prevalent theories of separate creations of discrete and different races. Reprint of 2nd., enlarged edition, 1810, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1965.



Subjects: ANTHROPOLOGY
  • 5198

First lines of theory and practice in venereal diseases.

Edinburgh: C. Elliot, 1787.

First complete description of lymphatic chancre – “Nisbet’s chancre”.



Subjects: INFECTIOUS DISEASE › SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES
  • 7214

A Discourse before the Humane Society, ... Delivered on the Second Tuesday of June, 1787.

Boston, MA: E. Russell, 1787.

The first separate work on resuscitation published in the United States. A list of “Methods of Treatment to be used with Persons apparently dead from drowning, &c.” appears on p. iv; these methods included warming the body, rubbing the skin with flannel and sprinkling it with spirits, blowing tobacco smoke up the rectum and gently moving the limbs. The Humane Society of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (founded 1785) was the first society formed in the U.S. for resuscitating victims of drowning and other accidents such as suffocation, strangulation and lighting strikes. The reports of this society provide the earliest documentation of the history of resuscitation in America. Digital facsimile from the National Library of Medicine at this link.



Subjects: COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › United States , COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › United States › American Northeast, Resuscitation, U.S.: CONTENT OF PUBLICATIONS BY STATE & TERRITORY › Massachusetts
  • 8026

Descripcion de diferentes piezas de historia natural las mas del ramo maritimo.

Havana: Imprenta de la Capitanía Genera, 1787.

This catalogue of Carrbean fish was the first scientific treatise printed in Cuba and also the first illustrated book printed in Cuba. Digital facsimile from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.



Subjects: COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › Cuba, NATURAL HISTORY › Illustration, ZOOLOGY › Ichthyology, ZOOLOGY › Illustration
  • 10480

Gifthistorie des Thier- Pflanzen- und Mineralreichs, nebst den Gegengiften, und der medicinischen Anwendung der Gifte, nach den neuesten Toxicologen.

Berlin: Friedrich Mauer, 1787.

This work was not illustrated. Digital facsimile from Bayerische StaatsBibliothek at this link.



Subjects: BOTANY › Medical Botany, Minerals and Medicine, OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH & MEDICINE , TOXICOLOGY, ZOOLOGY › Medical Zoology
  • 12163

A collection of engravings, tending to illustrate the generation and parturition of animals, and of the human species.

London: J. Johnson, 1787.

An idiosyncratic collection of rarely reproduced images with explanatory commentaries in English and French, concerning reproduction and obstetric complications in animals and humans. Topics include:

The Funis of a nut.- The Chrysalis of the Phaena Atlas. - The eggs of the Cuttle Fish.
A display of the internal parts of a frog, with the ovaria.
A section of a hen, shewing the Ovarium, with an egg perfected in the Infundibulum.
A part of the Uterus of a cow, with one of the Cotyledons, and a portion of the membranes.
Three human abortions, one of which contains twins.
A morbid human Ovum.
A human Ovum, about the third month of pregnancy.
The Uterus, containing the child of a woman, who died in the act of parturition.
A twin Placenta with the membranes.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: BIOLOGY › Reproduction, OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGY › OBSTETRICS, OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGY › OBSTETRICS › Abortion, PATHOLOGY › Pathology Illustration
  • 12976

Museum Geversianum, sive, index rerum naturalium: Continens instructissimam copiam pretiosissimorum omnis generis ex tribus regnis naturae objectorum: Quam dum in vivis erat magna diligentia multaque cura comparavit Abrahamus Gevers.

Rotterdam: P. et J. Holsteyn bibliopolas, 1787.

Posthumously published classified listing of the immense museum of natural history specimens collected by Gevers, member of the town council, may of Rotterdam, and director of the Dutch East-Indian Company (VOC). Digital facsimile from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.



Subjects: MUSEUMS › Natural History Museums / Wunderkammern
  • 13908

Descripcion de diferentes piezas de historia natura, las mas del ramo maritimo.

Havana, 1787.

The first scientific book printed in Cuba. The striking illustrations are by the author's son, and depict fish, turtles, and crustacieans observed along the Cuban shoreline. The final section contains three alarming illsutrations of an enslaved man identified as Domingo Fernández, who is suffering from scrotal lymphedema.
Digital facsimile from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.



Subjects: COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › Cuba, NATURAL HISTORY › Illustration, ZOOLOGY › Ichthyology
  • 399.2

A description of all the bursae mucosae of the human body.

Edinburgh: C. Elliot, 1788.

The first serious study of this subject and the most original anatomical work by the greatest of the Monro dynasty. See No. 1385.



Subjects: ANATOMY › 18th Century
  • 1600

Mémoires sur les hôpitaux de Paris.

Paris: P. D. Pierres, 1788.

Reforms quickly followed Tenon’s disclosures of the dreadful conditions prevailing in the hospitals of Paris in the 18th century. He was also instrumental in the foundation of a special hospital for children. English translation as Memoirs on Paris  hospitals. Edited and with an introduction, notes and appendices by Dora B. Weiner (1996). Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.



Subjects: HOSPITALS
  • 2028.53

The connexion of life with respiration; or, an experimental inquiry into the effects of submersion, strangulation, and several kinds of noxious airs, on living animals.

London: J. Johnson, 1788.

Goodwyn emphasized the importance of ventilation in resuscitation.



Subjects: RESPIRATION › Artificial Respiration, Resuscitation
  • 2028.54

An essay on the recovery of the apparently dead.

London: C. Dilly, 1788.

Kite recommended the use of artificial respiration and was probably the first to recommend electric shock for resuscitation.



Subjects: RESPIRATION › Artificial Respiration, Resuscitation
  • 2280

An account of a remarkable transportation of the viscera.

Phil. Trans., 78, 350-63, 1788.

Baillie recorded a case of congenital dextrocardia with complete situs inversus viscerum. Reprinted in Willius & Keys, Cardiac classics, 1941, pp. 257-62.



Subjects: CARDIOLOGY › Congenital Heart Defects, PATHOLOGY
  • 1733

Elements of medical jurisprudence.

London: T. Becket, 1788.

First textbook in English on medical jurisprudence.



Subjects: Forensic Medicine (Legal Medicine)
  • 3929

A singular case of diabetes, consisting entirely in the quality of the urine; with an inquiry into the different theories of that disease.

Lond. med. J., 9, 286-308, 1788.

Cawley was the first to suggest a relationship between the pancreas and diabetes, observing that the disease may follow injury to that organ.



Subjects: Ductless Glands: Internal Secretion › Pancreas, Metabolism & Metabolic Disorders › Diabetes
  • 3426

Case of a scirrhus in the pylorus of an infant.

Cases Obs. med. Soc. New-Haven Co., 81-84, 1788.

First American case report on congenital hypertrophic pyloric stenosis. Cases and observations by the Medical Society of New-Haven County…was the first American medical periodical. Only one volume was published. Beardsley’s paper was reprinted in Arch. Pediat, 1903, 20, 355-57. and also in M.M. Ravitch, The story of pyloric stenosis, Surgery, 1960, 48, 1117- 1143. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.



Subjects: GASTROENTEROLOGY › Esophagus: Stomach: Duodenum: Intestines, GENETICS / HEREDITY › HEREDITARY / CONGENITAL DISEASES OR DISORDERS › Pyloric Stenosis, PEDIATRICS, Societies and Associations, Medical, U.S.: CONTENT OF PUBLICATIONS BY STATE & TERRITORY › Connecticut
  • 4304.1

Dissertatio medica descriptionem et casus aliquot osteomalaciae sistens.

Uppsala, Sweden: J. Edman, 1788.

In his doctoral thesis Ekman gave an account of osteogenesis imperfecta in three generations. For extensive translation see No. 4404.1. K.S. Seedorff, Osteogenesis imperfecta, Copenhagen, 1949.



Subjects: GENETICS / HEREDITY › HEREDITARY / CONGENITAL DISEASES OR DISORDERS › Hereditary Disorders of the Skeleton › Osteogenesis Imperfecta, ORTHOPEDICS › Diseases of or Injuries to Bones, Joints & Skeleton › Congenital Diseases
  • 4305

Description de plusieurs nouveaux moyens mécaniques propres à prevénir, borner et même corriger dans certains cas les courbures latérales et la torsion de l’épine du dos.

Lausanne: [Privately Printed], 1788.

Venel stressed the necessity for prolonged periods of recumbency, rather than exercise, in the correction of spinal curvature. He invented a corset and extension bed for treating spinal deformities. His extension bed gave an entirely new direction to treatment and was widely adopted. In 1790 he founded at Orbe, Switzerland, the first orthopedic hospital. The pamphlet was reprinted in Mém. Soc. Sci. phys. Lausanne, 2, 66-, 197-. (1789). Digital facsimile of the 1788 pamphlet from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: ORTHOPEDICS › Orthopedic Devices, ORTHOPEDICS › Orthopedic Surgery & Treatments › Spine
  • 3677

Dissertation sur les avantages des nouvelles dents, et rateliers artificiels, incorruptibles et sans odeur.

Paris: L'Auteur, 1788.

Dubois de Chémant was the first dentist to manufacture porcelain teeth by a process modified from that originally invented by an apothecary named Alexis Duchâteau in 1776. His book was translated into English as A Dissertation on Artifical Teeth. Evincing the Advantages of Teeth Made of Mineral Paste over Every Denomination of Animal Substance.... The earliest edition of this translation cited by OCLC WorldCat in May 2015 was the London, 1804 edition, described as a 4th edition. Digital facsimile of 1818 5th edition from Google Books at this link.The title page of the 1818 edition indicates that he maintained an office in London.



Subjects: DENTISTRY › Prosthodontics
  • 5199

Abhandlung über die venerische Krankheit. 3 vols.

Göttingen: J. C. Dieterich, 17881789.

Girtanner’s important textbook on the venereal diseases contains some history.



Subjects: INFECTIOUS DISEASE › SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES, INFECTIOUS DISEASE › SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES › History of Sexually Transmitted Diseases
  • 8216

Observations sur le tétanos; Ses différences, ses causes, ses symptômes, avec le traitement de cette maladie & les moyens de la prévenir. Précédées d'un discours sur les moyens de perfectionner la médecine-pratique sous la zone torride. Suivies d'observations sur la santé des femmes enceintes dans ces régions; leurs maladies aux différentes époques de la grossesse; l'accouchement & les suites; la conservation des nouveau-nés jusqu'à l'adolescence. Terminées par le rapprochement des vices & des abus des hôpitaux d'entre les tropiques, & les moyens d'y remédier. Par M. Dazille. Pour servir de développement & de suite à ce que cet auteur a écrit du tétanos dans ses ouvrages sur les maladies des nègrse [sic], & sur les maladies des climats chauds.

Paris: Planche, 1788.

Primarily concerning the diseases of black slaves. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.



Subjects: BLACK PEOPLE & MEDICINE & BIOLOGY, Slavery and Medicine, TROPICAL Medicine
  • 9896

Recherches, mémoires et observations sur les maladies épizootiques de Saint-Dominique, recueillis & publiés par le Cercle des Philadelphes du Cap-François.

Cap-Haïtien, Haiti: De l'Imprimerie Royale, 1788.

The Cercle des Philadelphes, of which Charles Arthaud was president, was an academic scientific society in Saint-Domingue, in existence between 1784 and 1791. It was the most prominent academic society in the Americas prior to the French Revolution. Digital facsimile from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.



Subjects: COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › Haiti, EPIDEMIOLOGY, Slavery and Medicine, VETERINARY MEDICINE › Epizootics
  • 10004

A dissertation on the influence of passions upon disorders of the body.

London: C. Dilly, 1788.

A treatise on the psychosomatic aspects of certain diseases. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.



Subjects: PSYCHIATRY, PSYCHOSOMATIC MEDICINE
  • 10106

Bibliotheca elementar chirurgico-anatomica, ou compendio historico-critico, e chronologico sobre a cirurgia e anatomia em geral, que contém os seus principios, incrementos e ultimo estado, assim em Portugal, como nas mais partes cultas do mundo; com a especificação de seus respectivos auctores, suas obras, vidas, methodos e inventos, desde os primeiros seculos até o presente ….

Porto, Portugal: Antonio Alvarez Ribeiro, 1788.

The first bibliography of historical medical literature in Portuguese. The preliminary leaves evaluate the status of medical history and bibliography. Part 1 describes the history of medicine to 1600; part 2, its history from 1600 to 1731; the third, its history from 1731 to 1783. Each is a narrative with copious annotations, including bibliographical citations. The work was based on Portal’s Histoire de l’anatomie et de la chirurgie, Paris 1770-1773, but has substantial additions on Portuguese medicine and on the years 1773-1783. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link



Subjects: BIBLIOGRAPHY › Bibliographical Classics, COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › Portugal
  • 10813

An account of the slave trade on the coast of Africa.

London: J. Philips, 1788.

Falconbridge was a surgeon in the slave trade before becoming an abolitionist. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › Africa, Slavery and Medicine
  • 13163

Voyages intéressans dans différentes colonies françaises, espagnoles, anglaises, &c; contenant des observations importantes relatives à ces contrées; & un mémoire sur les maladies les plus communes à Saint-Domingue, leurs remèdes, & le moyen de s'en préserver moralement & phisiquement: Avec des anecdotes singulières, qui n'avaient jamais été publiés....

London & Paris: Jean-François Bastien, 1788.

The final section addresses maladies affecting the residents of Saint-Domingue. Unlike many of his contemporaries Bourgeois assiduously recorded the medical practices of the enslaved and subjugated African and Indigenous residents of the island. Rather than simply impose contemporary European medical notions onto tropical diseases and maladies, as well as those injuries commonly endured by enslaved laborers, Bourgeois observed the ways Afro-Caribbean communities adapted medical knowledge and herbalist practices to the native flora of the West-Indies. He recognized that enslaved people arrived in the West-Indies with their own understanding of medicine.  Digital facsimile from BnFGallica at this link

Weaver, Karol Kovalovich. "The enslaved healers of eighteenth-century Saint Domingue," Bull. Hist. Med., 76 (2002) 429-460.



Subjects: BLACK PEOPLE & MEDICINE & BIOLOGY, COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › Caribbean, Slavery and Medicine
  • 13366

Les eaux minérales et thermales de Saint-Dominique. Tome 1 (All Published).

Port-au-Prince, Haiti: imp. Mozart, 1788.

One of the earliest medical publications printed in Haiti. Duvivier, Bibliographie générale et méthodique d'Haiti, 2, p. 206.



Subjects: COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › Haiti, THERAPEUTICS › Balneotherapy, TROPICAL Medicine
  • 13593

The theory of rain.

Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin., 1, 41-86, 1788.

In this paper on the operation of the water-cycle in meteorology Hutton hypothesized that rain was caused by a mixture of air currents of differing temperatures, either saturated or nearly saturated with moisture. "His Theory of Rain proposes the rule that 'the action and effect of heat and cold' lies at the base of all rainfall. As he says, he seeks to 'form a theory of rain upon that investigated rule, concerning the evaporation and condensation of water' . . . Backed with a considerable array of facts on humidity, temperature, wind currents, and precipitation, Hutton propounds that the amount of humidity in the atmosphere increases proportionally to an increase in the temperature; precipitation occurs where a colder air mass collides with a hotter air mass, thereby cooling it and forcing it to expel its moisture" (Farnsworth, Mediating order and chaos: The water-cycle in the complex adaptive systems of romantic culture [2002] 23-24).  Hutton noted that mountain ranges can cause precipitation by raising and cooling warmer moisture-bearing air and claimed that rain could be predicted scientifically by carefully studying geographical features and wind currents.



Subjects: BIOLOGY › Ecology / Environment › Climate Change
  • 1552

Observationes anatomicae de aure interna comparata.

Pavia: S. Bartholomaeus, 1789.


Subjects: COMPARATIVE ANATOMY, OTOLOGY › Physiology of Hearing
  • 80

Medical inquiries and observations. 2 vols.

Philadelphia: Prichard & Hall, 17891793.

Rush was considered the ablest American clinician of his time. He was a friend of Benjamin Franklin and one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. His many writings are distinguished for their classical style.



Subjects: American (U.S.) REVOLUTIONARY WAR MEDICINE, Collected Works: Opera Omnia, Medicine: General Works
  • 1601

An account of the principle lazarettos in Europe. With various papers relative to the plague: Together with further observations on some foreign prisons and hospitals and additional remarks on the present state of those in Great Britain and Ireland.

Warrington, England: T. Cadell, 1789.

Following on his work for the improvement of the conditions in prisons, Howard travelled extensively in Europe, carrying out an elaborate investigation into the conditions of hospitals. Digital facsimile of the second edition (1791) from the Hathi Trust at this link.



Subjects: HOSPITALS, INFECTIOUS DISEASE › VECTOR-BORNE DISEASES › Flea-Borne Diseases › Plague (transmitted by fleas from rats to humans)
  • 1838

A treatise of the materia medica. 2 vols.

Edinburgh: C. Elliot, 1789.

An expansion of Cullen’s “Lectures on materia medica”, 1773.



Subjects: PHARMACOLOGY › PHARMACEUTICALS › Materia medica / Herbals / Herbal Medicines
  • 1453

Anatomicae disquisitiones de auditu et olfactu.

Pavia: typog. P. Galeatius, 1789.

Scarpa made important researches concerning the auditory and olfactory apparatus of fishes, birds, reptiles, and man. See L. Sellers and B. Anson, [Scarpa’s] Anatomical observations on the round window, Arch. Otolaryng., 1962, 75, 2-45.



Subjects: COMPARATIVE ANATOMY, OTOLOGY › Physiology of Hearing, Olfaction / Smell, Anatomy & Physiology of
  • 3809

Su i gozzi e sulla stupidità che in alcuni paesi gli accompagna tentativi

Torino: Dalla Stamperia Reale, 1789.

Hirsch considered this the first important work on cretinism and goitre. See also Malacarne’s Lettre, in J. P. Frank: Delectus opusculorum medicorum, 1789, 6, 241-58. Digital facsimile of Malacarne's pamphlet from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: ENDOCRINOLOGY › Thyroid
  • 4920.2

Remarks and rules set by him in: Regolamento dei Regi Spedali di Santa Maria Nuova & di Bonifazio.

Florence: Gaetano Cambiagi, 1789.

Chiarugi’s regulations for the Bonifazio mental asylum mark the first appearance in print of his landmark reforms in the humane treatment of the mentally ill. Chiarugi was the first to practise the humanitarian treatment of the insane.



Subjects: PSYCHIATRY
  • 4409

Dissertatio de fractura patellae et olecrani.

The Hague: I. van Cleef, 1789.


Subjects: ORTHOPEDICS › Orthopedic Surgery & Treatments › Fractures & Dislocations
  • 5833.1

Précis ou cours d’ opérations sur la chirurgie des yeux. 2 vols.,

Paris: Didot, 17891790.

The first separate book on ophthalmic surgery.



Subjects: OPHTHALMOLOGY › Ocular Surgery & Procedures
  • 6021

An account of a particular change of structure in the human ovarium.

Phil. Trans., 79, 71-78, 1789.

Matthew Baillie’s notable anatomico-pathological studies on dermoid cysts of the ovary. Also published in Lond. med. J., 1789, 10, 322-32.



Subjects: OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGY › GYNECOLOGY
  • 5470

An account of the bilious remitting fever. In his Medical inquiries and observations, 1, 104-21

Philadelphia, 1789.

One of the first important accounts of dengue (“breakbone fever”). Rush described the Philadelphia outbreak of 1780.



Subjects: EPIDEMIOLOGY, INFECTIOUS DISEASE › VECTOR-BORNE DISEASES › Mosquito-Borne Diseases › Dengue Fever, U.S.: CONTENT OF PUBLICATIONS BY STATE & TERRITORY › Pennsylvania
  • 8371

An arithmetical and medical analysis of the diseases and mortality of the human species.

London: Printed for the author by John Crowder, and sold by C. Dilly, 1789.

Black analyzed the London bills of mortality from 1701-1776. His work was the only study to provide a numerical account of insanity, a disease on people's minds because of George III's illness.



Subjects: DEMOGRAPHY / Population: Medical Statistics, PSYCHIATRY
  • 8921

The botanic garden: A poem in two parts. Part I. Containing the economy of vegetation. Part II. The loves of the plants. With philosophical notes. 2 vols.

17891791.

The first edition of part 2, preceded part 1, being published in 1789. This poem was the chief source of Erasmus Darwin's literary fame during his lifetime. Like his other works, this poem contains a great deal of frequently advanced scientific information in the nearly 300 footnotes and 115 pages of appendices. This work also contains five plates engraved by William Blake, including "The fertilisation of Egypt" after a design by Henry Fuseli, and 4 engravings of the Portland Vase.



Subjects: BOTANY, EVOLUTION, LITERATURE / Philosophy & Medicine & Biology
  • 10348

Observations on the duties of a physician, and the methods of improving medicine. Accommodated to the present state of society and manners in the United States. Delivered in the University of Pennsylvania, February 7, 1789, at the conclusion of a course of lectures upon chemistry and the practice of physic.

Philadelphia: Printed and sold by Prichard & Hall, 1789.

Full text available from quod.lib.umich.edu at this link.



Subjects: Ethics, Biomedical
  • 10387

An essay on the preservation of the health of persons employed in agriculture, and on the cure of the diseases incident to that way of life.

Bath, England: R. Cruttwell & London: C. Dilly, 1789.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: Agriculture / Horticulture, OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH & MEDICINE
  • 11957

Hortus kewensis; or, a catalogue of the plants cultivated in the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew. by William Aiton, Gardener to His Majesty. 3 vols.

London: Printed for George Nicol, 1789.

Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.



Subjects: BOTANY › Botanical Gardens
  • 11976

Genera plantarum: Secundum ordines naturales disposita, juxta methodum in horto regio parisiensi exaratam, anno M.DCC.LXXIV. By Antoine Laurent de Jussieu.

Paris: apud viduam Herissant et Theophilum Barrois, 1789.

Jussieu was the first to publish a natural classification of flowering plants, basing his system on a extensive unpublished work by his deceased uncle, the botanist Bernard de Jussieu.

"In his study of flowering plants, Genera plantarum (1789), Jussieu adopted a methodology based on the use of multiple characters to define groups, an idea derived from naturalist Michel Adanson. This was a significant improvement over the "artificial" system of Linnaeus, whose most popular work classified plants into classes and orders based on the number of stamens and pistils. Jussieu did keep Linnaeus' binomial nomenclature, resulting in a work that was far-reaching in its impact; many of the present-day plant families are still attributed to Jussieu. Morton's 1981 History of botanical science counts 76 of Jussieu's families conserved in the ICBN, versus just 11 for Linnaeus, for instance" (Wikipedia article on Antoine Laurent de Jussieu, accessed 3-2020).

Digital facsimile from the Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.



Subjects: BOTANY › Angiosperms, BOTANY › Classification / Systemization of Plants
  • 13134

Tratado de las heridas de armas de fuego, dispuesto para uso de los alumnos del Real Colegio de Chirugia de Cadiz.

Cadiz: Por Don Manuel Ximinez Carreño, 1789.

Probably the first significant work on military medicine by a Spanish physician. Canivell’s work, prepared for the use of students at Cadiz’s Royal College of Surgery, deals with contusions, wounds and fractures caused by gunshots, starting with wounds to the head and progressing downward through the various parts of the body to the legs and feet. Digital facsimile from the Wellcomecollection.org at this link.



Subjects: COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › Spain, MILITARY MEDICINE, SURGERY & HYGIENE
  • 13686

A historical account of the Royal Hospital for Seamen at Greenwich. M,DCC,LXXXIX.

London: G. Nicol, T. Cadell...., 1789.

"This describes the former Royal Naval Hospital at Greenwich, originally designed in 1664 by John Webb as a palace, and afterwards adapted for use as a Naval Hospital by Sir Christopher Wren, with the assistance of Nicholas Hawksmoor (1696-1752). The Painted Hall was decorated by James Thornhill (1708-1727), and the Chapel remodelled by James Stuart (1779-1789). At the centre of this magnificent baroque complex stands Inigo Jones's earlier Queen's House (1616-1638). The buildings were in use as a Naval Hospital from 1705 to 1869" (https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/book/an-historical-account-of-the-royal-hospital-for-seamen-at-greenwich).

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.



Subjects: HOSPITALS, HOSPITALS › History of Hospitals
  • 13763

A narrative of four journeys into the country of the Hottentots, and Caffraria. In the years one thousand seven hundred and seventy-seven, eight, and nine.

London: J. Johnson, 1789.

Trained in horticulture at Syon House, London, Paterson was sent in 1777 to the Cape of Good Hope to collect plants for the estate of the Countess of Strathmore, undertaking four journeys into the South African interior, partly in the company of Robert Jacob Gordon and Jacob van Reenen. In the course of his travels the author penetrated as far as Namaqualand on the west, and the Great Fish River on the south-east. Although the principal feature of the work is a description of the botanical specimens collected ... there are many interesting notes respecting the natives, with a few remarks on the Dutch Colonists. The colored plates mainly depict botanical specimens. Digital facsimile from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.



Subjects: BOTANY, COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › South Africa, VOYAGES & Travels by Physicians, Surgeons & Scientists › History of Voyages & Travels by Physicians....