Facets

1563

#1815

Colóquios dos simples, e drogas he cousas mediçinais da Índia e assi dalgũas frutas achadas nella onde se tratam algũas cousas tocantes a medicina, pratica, e outras cousas boas pera saber.

The first account of Indian materia medica and the first textbook on tropical medicine written by a European. It includes a classic account of Asiatic cholera, the first account of this disease by a European. This is …

1578

#1819

Tractado de las drogas, y medicinas de las Indias Orientales, con sus plantas debuxadas al bivo.

This is mainly a translation of Garcia d’Orta’s Coloquios (No. 1815) with the addition of some illustrations. Acosta, a Portuguese Jesuit physician and surgeon, travelled to India where he met Garcia d’Orta. Acosta pi…

1642

#2263

De medicina Indorum.

Bontius was probably the first to regard tropical medicine as an independent branch of medical science. He spent the last four years of his life in the Dutch East Indies, and his book incorporates the experience he ga…

1656

#8591

Flora sinensis, fructus floresque humillime porrigens serenissimo et potentissimo Leopoldo Ignatio, Hungariae regi florentissimo, &c. Fructus saecul promittenti Augustissimos.

The first description published in Europe of an ecosystem of the Far East, including animals as well as plants, with particular attention to Chinese fruit bearing plants, and medicinal properties of Chinese plants. Di…

1658

#1825

De Indiae utriusque re naturali et medica libri quatuordecim.

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

1671

#6491.9

Les secrets de la médecine des chinois, consistant en la parfaite connoissance du pouls. Envoyez de la Chine par un françois, homme de grand mérite.

The first Western book on Chinese medicine, with a few brief comments on Japanese methods. This anonymous collection of translations of early Chinese texts on pulse medicine has been variously attributed to different …

1677

#10648

Laboratorium chymicum, gehouden op het voortreffelycke Eylandt Ceylon, soo in't Animalische, Vegetabilische, als Mineralische Ryck.

The first book on the animal, vegetable and mineral medicines indigenous to Sri Lanka. Grim was a physician in the service of the VOC (the East India Company). Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

1678 –1703

#9543

Hortus Indicus Malabaricus: Continens regni Malabarici apud Indos cereberrimi onmis generis plantas rariores, Latinas, Malabaricis, Arabicis, Brachmanum charactareibus hominibusque expressas ....12 vols.

The earliest comprehensive printed work on the flora of Asia and the tropics in 12 folio volumes written and published under the supervision of van Rheede tot Drakenstein, a colonial administrator of the Dutch East In…

1682

#6492

Specimen medicinae Sinicae.

One of the earliest studies of Chinese medicine published in the West. (See also Nos. 6472.10 et seq.). Cleyer edited these translations of Chinese medical texts, reproducing a series of 30 plates dealing with Chinese…

1683

#6374.1

Dissertatio de arthritide: mantissa schematica: de acupunctura: et orationes tres…

This work by the resident physician at Deshima, the Dutch East India Company’s trading station in Nagasaki Bay, Japan, contains the first detailed description of acupuncture, and the first illustration of acu-points p…

1685

#11128

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

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

1686

#6492.1

Clavis medica ad Chinarum doctrinam de pulsibus. Autore R.P. Michaele Boymo, e Soc. Jesu, & in China missionario. Huius operis ultra viginti annos iam sepulti fragmenta, hinc inde dispersa, collegit & in gratiam medicae facultatis in lucem Europaeam produxit Cl. Dn. Andreas Cleyerus, M.D. & Societatis Batavo-Orientalis Proto-Medicus. A quo nunc demum mittitur totius operis exemplar, e China recens allatum, & a mendis purgatum, Procuratore R.P. Philippo Copletio, Belga, e Soc. Jesu, Chinensis missionis Romam misso.

Translations of Chinese treatises on pulse medicine with illustrations of hands and wrists to illustrate pulse-taking. The texts published here are different from those published by Cleyer in No. 6492. Previously publ…

1707 –1710

#2670

The physician’s pulse-watch. 2 vols.

Before watches had hands to record the seconds, Floyer invented a pulse-watch which divided the minute. He was the first to count the pulse with the aid of a watch and to make regular observations on the pulse-rate. T…

1712

#6374.11

Amoentitatum exoticarum politico-physico-medicarum fasciculi V.

Kaempfer’s illustrated accounts of Japanese acupuncture and moxibustion are among the best of the 17th century. They appeared for the first time in the above work and were translated into English in his The History of…

1717

#11473

Musaeum Zeylanicum, sive catalogus plantarum, in Zeylan sponte nascentium, observatarum & descriptarum a viaro celeberrimo Paulo Hermanno.

Paul Hermann's study of the plants of Sri Lanka collected during his experience as a Ship's Medical Oficer in the Dutch East India Company after Hermann completed his medical studies at Padua. This work was edited for…

1721

#10651

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

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

1737

#13263

Thesaurus Zeylanicus exhibens plantas in Insula Zeylana nascentes; Inter quas plurimae novae species, & genera inveniuntur. Omnia Iconibus illustrata, ac descripta.

The first illustrated flora of Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon). Burman, a Dutch physician, was a friend and correspondent of Linnaeus and professor of botany. "Indeed, Linnaeus, as a guest at the Burman house, had a ha…

1741 –1750

#6837

Het Amboinsche Kruidboek . . . Herbarium Amboinense . . . nunc primum in lucem edidit & in Latinum semonem vertit Joannes Burmannus. 6 vols.

Het Amboinsche kruidboek or Herbarium Amboinense, a catalogue of the plants of Ambon in the Maluku Islands of Indonesia, by Georg Eberhard Rumphius, a German-born soldier and botanist employed by the Dutch East India …

1742

#13321

Religiosa hospitalidad por los hijos del piadoso coripheo patriarcha y padre de pobres S. Iuan Ð Dios en su provincia de S. Raphael de las Islas Philipinas: Compendio substancial de su fundacion progressos y estado presente que en sucinto informatibo estilo...

Maldonado de Puga, a member of the Order of San Juan Hospitalier founded in 1572, reported on the introduction and practice of Western medicine in the Philippines, the foundation of hospitals and the relationship betw…

1754

#13783

Poissons, écrevisses et crabes, de diverse couleurs et figures extraordinaires, que l'on trouve autour des Isles Moluques, et sur les côtes des Terres Australes....

"This extraordinary work purports to show marine life from the seas around Indonesia at a time when the natural wildlife of that area was virtually unknown in Europe. Renard, both a publisher and a spy for the British…

1758

#12396

A genuine narrative of the deplorable deaths of the English gentlemen and others who were suffocated in the Black Hole in Fort-William, at Calcutta, in the Kingdom of Bengal, in the night succeeding the 20th day of June, 1756, in a letter to a friend.

Holwell was a survivor of the Black Hole of Calcutta in Fort William, Calcutta , a poorly ventilated dungeon measuring 4.30 × 5.50 ⁠metres (14 × 18 ⁠⁠feet), in which troops of Siraj ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Bengal, hel…

1767

#12397

An account of the manner of inoculating for the small pox in the East Indies: With some observations on the practice and mode of treating that disease in those parts.

Holwell's account of smallpox variolation in India prior to Jenner has been disputed by historians. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

1773

#8813

Observations on the diseases in long voyages to hot countries, and particularly on those which prevail in the East Indies.

Digital facsimile of the third edition, "revised and enlarged" (1793) from the Internet Archive at this link.

1774

#6835

Kaitai Shinsho (解体新書 Kyūjitai: 解體新書,(Anatomical Tables). A translation of Johan Adam Kulmus's Ontleedkundige Tafelen by Sugita Genpaku.

The first translation of any Western medical text into Japanese. "Kaitai Shinsho represented the beginning of two epoch-making developments. First and most directly Gempaku's work set in motion the modern transformati…

1776

#11996

Voyage à la Nouvelle Guinée, dans lequel on trouve la description des lieux, des observations physiques & morales, & des détails relatifs à l'histoire naturelle dans le regne animal & le regne végétal. Enrichi de cent vingt figures en taille douce.

Digital facsimile from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

1776

#12477

Characteres generum plantarum, quas in itinere ad insulas maris Australis, collegerunt, descripserunt, delinearunt, annis 1772-1775.

This account of botanical discoveries made by the Forsters in Australia and New Zealand on Cook's second voyage was one of the earliest scientific publications resulting from that voyage. Specimens were illustrated on…

1780

#5469

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

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. H…

1781

#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.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

1782

#5104.1

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

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 physic…

1783

#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.

Digital facsimile from wellcomecollection.org at this link.

1790

#7366

Journal of a voyage to New South Wales with sixty five plates of non descript. animals, birds, lizards, serpents, curious cones of trees and other natural productions

This work described many Australian species for the first time. It includes natural history illustrations after watercolor paintings by Sarah Stone. Digital facsimile from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link

1791

#12825

Icones selectæ plantarum, quas in Japonia collegit et delineavit; Engelbertus Kaempfer; ex archetypis in Museo Britannico asservatis. Edited by Sir Joseph Banks.

Sir Joseph Banks was responsible for publishing most of Kaempfer's studies of Japanese plants, which had remained unpublished for more than 70 years. This work introduced many Japanese plants to Western botanists. Dig…

1793 –1795

#12951

A specimen of the botany of New Holland

The first published book on the flora of Australia, issued by Sowerby in four parts between 1793 and 1795. It included 16 hand-colored plates reproducing paintings by Sowerby, mostly based on sketches by John White, a…

1793

#13619

A paper on the prevention and treatment of the disorders of the seamen and soldiers in Bengal. Presented to the Honourable Court of East-India Directors, in the year 1791.

Murray was in the Bengal Medical Service from 1782 to 1802. This was his report to the Directors of the East-India Company. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

1794

#5735.1

Article on Indian rhinoplasty.

The first report published in Europe on the so-called Indian or Hindu method of rhinoplasty using a forehead flap, accompanied by an engraving of the patient, Cowasjee, with a restored nose and showing the stages of t…

1796

#310

An account of Indian serpents collected on the coast of Coromandel: containing descriptions and drawings of each species, together with experiments and remarks on their several poisons.

First attempt at a description of Indian serpents and serpent venoms. Includes the original description of Russell’s viper, Daboia russellii. Digital facsimile from the Linda Hall LIbrary at this link.

1798

#9082

An epitome of the natural history of the insects of China: Comprising figures and descriptions of upwards of one hundred new, singular, and beautiful species: together with some that are of importance in medicine, domestic economy, &c. The figures are accurately, drawn, engraved, and coloured, from speciemsn of the insects; the descriptions are arranged accordig to the system of Linnaeus, with references to the writings of Fabricius, and other systematic authors.

The first work in a Western language on the insects of China, including pharmaceutical aspects. For this work Donovan obtained specimens and information from George Macartney a British envoy to China. Includes 50 colo…

1800

#9084

An epitome of the natural history of the insects of India, and the islands in the Indian seas: Comprising upwards of two hundred and fifty figures and descriptions of the most singular and beautiful species, selected chiefly from those recently discovered, and which have not appeared in the works of any preceding author. The figures are accurately drawn, engraved, and coloured, from specimens of the insects; the descriptions are arranged according to the system of Linnaeus; with references to the writings of Fabricius, and other systematic authors.

"For Insects of India Donovan described and figured specimens in his own cabinet, that were originally collected by the late Duchess of Portland, Marmaduke Tunstall, a Governor Holford (many years resident in India), …

1805

#9085

An epitome of the natural history of the insects of New Holland, New Zealand, New Guinea, Otaheite, and other islands in the Indian, Southern, and Pacific oceans: Including the figures and descriptions of one hundred and fifty-three species of the more splendid, beautiful, and interesting insects, hitherto discovered in those countries, and which for the most part have not appeared in the works of any preceding author. The figures are correctly delineated from specimens of the insects; and with the descriptions are arranged according to the Linnæan system, with reference to the writings of Fabricius and other entomologists.

"Apart from occasional excursions in England and Wales Donovan never left London. His Insects of New Holland is based on specimens collected by Joseph Banks and William Bayly an astronomer on the second and third voya…

1807

#8814

An account of the diseases of India, as they appeared in the English fleet, and in the naval hospital at Madras, in 1782 and 1783; with observations on ulcers, and the hospital sores of that country, &c. & c. To which is prefixed a view of the diseases of an expedition and passage of a fleet and armament to India, in 1781.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

1813

#6975

Materia medica of Hindoostan, and artisan’s and agriculturist’s nomenclature.

The first book in English on the materia medica of India, and a pioneering work in the field of Indian medical history. Ainslie joined the British East India Company as an assistant surgeon in 1788 and spent the next …

1813

#8211

The influence of tropical climates, more especially the climate of India, on European constitutions; the principal effects and diseases thereby induced, their prevention or removal, and the means of preserving health in hot climates, rendered obvious to to Europeans in every capacity: An essay .

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link. Enlarged and retitled second edition: The influence of tropical climates on European constitutions: to which is added tropical hygiene, or the preservation of …

1813

#14178

Recherches historiques sur la médecine des chinois.

The first Western history of Chinese medicine. Lepage, a pupil of Pierre Sue, was a friend and colleague of pioneer sinologist Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat. In his medical thesis Lepage presented an overview of what was t…

1814

#10761

Hortus Bengalensis, or, a catalogue of the plants growing in the East India Company's Botanic Garden at Calcutta.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

1817

#8816

Results of an investigation, respecting epidemic and pestilential diseases; including researches in the Levant, concerning the plague. 2 vols.

"From 1815 to 1817 Maclean travelled in Spain, Turkey, and the Levant, and he studied the plague at the Greek Pest Hospital at Constantinople, in the service of the Levant Company. His experiences in the Levant and in…

1818

#5182.1

Practical observations on fever, dysentery and liver complaints as they occur amongst European troops in India. With introductory remarks on the disadvantages of selecting boys for Indian military service.

Ballingall distinguished between amoebic and bacillary dysentery. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

1818

#7369

Narrative of a journey in the interior of China, and of a voyage to and from that country, in the years 1816 and 1817; containing an account of the most interesting transactions of Lord Amherst's embassy to the court of Pekin and observations on the countries which it visited.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

1820 –1824

#10762

Flora Indica; or descriptions of Indian plants by the late William Roxburgh. Edited by William Carey, to which are added descriptions of plants recently discovered by Nathaniel Wallich. 2 vols.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

1824

#13875

A voyage to India: Containing reflections on a voyage to Madras and Bengal, in 1821, in the ship Lonach; instructions for the preservation of health in Indian climates; and hints to surgeons and owners of private trading-ships.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

1826

#8523

Materia Indica; or, some account of those articles which are employed by the Hindoos and other eastern nations, in their medicine, arts, and agriculture; comprising also formulae, with practical observations, names of diseases in various eastern languages, and a copious list of oriental books immediately connected with general science. 2 vols.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.