Facets

1469

#9635

De officiis. Add: Paradoxa Stoicorum; Laelius, sive de amicitia; Cato maior, sive de senectute.

Of the 71 editions of Cicero's classical work on aging and death printed in the 15th century, Cato major de senectute, the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue cites 71, indicating the extreme popularity of Cicero's works…

1472

#6315

De infantium aegritudinibus et remediis.

The first printed book dealing exclusively with pediatrics. This was also the first medical treatise, and probably also the first scientific treatise, to make its original appearance in printed form rather than having…

1489

#1589.1

Gerontocomia.

The first printed book on geriatrics – a guide to proper hygiene, physical and mental, and particularly to the diet of the aged. Translated into English by L.R. Lind as Gerontocomia: on the care of the aged and Maximi…

1514

#2664

Galen: De differentiis morborum libri ii…

First Renaissance Latin translation by Niccolò Leoniceno of Vicenza of Galen's work on physical diagnosis.

1519

#2666

HOC.IN.VOLVMINE.ACTVARI.GRÆCI auctoris medici praestantissimi digesti sunt de urinis libri septem de græco sermone in latinum conversi: in quibus omnia: que de urinis dici possunt: sive practicam sive Theoricam: sive cognitionem: sive prognostica quæsiveris: doctissime tractata continentur, Unde lector optime: si diligenter his libris infadaveris glumam paucă ex aliorsi lectionet: ex hac ipsa grans multum te colle gisse cognoveris.

The most complete medieval treatise on urinoscopy, translated from the Greek by Ambrogio Leone (1458/9- 1525) professor of medicine in Naples). Johannes Actuarius, the last of the great Byzantine physicians, was first…

1522

#2665

De morborum symptomatis.

This volume of Galen’s selected works includes Thomas Linacre’s Latin translation of De symptomatum differentiis.

1558

#1592

Trattato de la vita sobria.

Garrison considered this “the best treatise on personal hygiene and the simple life in existence”. Cornaro was called the Apostle of Senescence. "When he was about 40, Cornaro found himself exhausted and in poor healt…

1590

#10962

Libellus Rogerii Baconi Angli doctissimi mathematici et medici, De retardandis senectutis accidentibus et de sensibus conservandis.... opera Johannis Williams Oxoniensis.

Translated into English by Richard Browne as The cure of old age and preservation of youth by Roger Bacon, a Franciscan frier (London, 1683). Digital facsimile of the 1683 edition from the Internet Archive at this link.

1595

#2667

De iis qui morborum simulant deprehendendis liber.

The first treatise on feigned diseases.

1633

#5569

Helps for suddain accidents endangering life

The first book on first-aid. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

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…

1724

#1595

Medicina gerocomica; or the Galenic art of preserving old men’s healths.

The first English book devoted to gerontology. Digital facsimile of the second edition (1725) from the Internet Archive at this link.

1740

#2028.5

Avis pour donner du secours à ceux qui l’on croit noyez.

In this unsigned 4-page pamphlet the author argued that those who had been drowned for several hours could be resuscitated. His ideas inspired the formation of the Amsterdam Society (No. 2028.51). This anonymous work …

1742

#11407

An mortis incertae signa minus incerta a chirurgicis quam ab aliis experimenti?

Between the mid-1700s and the early 1900s many physicians lost confidence in their ability to declare legal death. This phenomenon was in part sparked by Winslow, whose dissertation claimed the existence of a death-li…

1744

#9341

M. T. Cicero's Cato major, or his course of old-age: with explanatory notes.

This work was Banjamin Franklin's personal favorite of the works printed by him, and is one of the finest books to emanate from a Colonial American press. It was the first classical text printed in North America, and …

1752

#11504

Lettres sur la certitude des signes de la mort où l'on rassure les citoyens de la crainte d'être enterrés vivans ; avec des observations et des expériences sur les noyés.

In this work in the pathophysiology of drowning, resuscitation and the legal diagnosis of death Louis sought to reassure the public that the risk of being buried alive was very low. He rejected a proposal for late bur…

1761

#2672

Inventum novum ex percussione thoracis humani ut signo abstrusos interni pectoris morbos detegendi.

The greatness of Auenbrugger’s discovery of the value of immediate percussion of the chest as a diagnostic measure was not recognized until many years after he first published. His little book met with a cold receptio…

1768

#101

Prodromo di un opera da imprimersi sopra le riproduzione animali.

In this preliminary to a larger work on regeneration which was never published, Spallanzani described regenerative capacities of remarkable complexity and repetitiveness in the land snail, salamander and toad and frog…

1768

#2028.51

Historie en Gedenkschriften van de Maatschappy, tot Redding von Drenkelingen, Opgerecht Binnen Amsterdam 1768.

AMSTERDAM SOCIETY

The first of many volumes of reports by the first society to save people drowned in the waterways of Amsterdam, established in 1767. Before 1767 anyone taken from the water was presumed dead and no attempts were made …

1773

#2028.52

A short account of a society at Amsterdam instituted in the year 1767 for the recovery of drowned persons…

An English summary of No. 2028.51, and the first detailed report on the society’s work published in England. Johnson proposed the formation of a similar society in England. The Royal Humane Society was formed by T. Co…

1780

#11874

Della morte apparente degli annegati.

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 org…

1786

#11711

Aphorismi de cognoscendis et curandis febribus.

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 …

1787

#7214

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

1788

#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.

Goodwyn emphasized the importance of ventilation in resuscitation.

1788

#2028.54

An essay on the recovery of the apparently dead.

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

1806

#2737

Essai sur les maladies et les lésions organiques du coeur et des gros vaisseaux.

Corvisart really created cardiac symptomatology and made possible the differentiation between cardiac and pulmonary disorders. He was first to explain heart failure mechanically and to describe the dyspnoea of effort.…

1807

#1602.1

The code of health and longevity; or, a concise view of the principles calculated for the preservation of health, and the attainment of long life. 4 vols.

One of the most comprehensive works on gerontology ever written, with a bibliography of 1800 references, supplemented by abstracts, translated excerpts from ancient authors, national data, etc.

1817

#1604.1

An essay on the disorders of old age, and on the means of prolonging life.

Carlisle, a distinguished surgeon and anatomist, advised young people to adopt a sound regimen early in life in order to secure longevity. Addressing himself directly to old people he described diseases common to the …

1817

#2672.2

Séméiologie générale, ou traité des signes et de leur valeur dans les maladies. Vol. 2.

Double introduced and applied auscultation (pp. 31 and 186).

1817

#11154

Des effets et des propriétés du froid, avec un aperçu historique et médical sur la campagne de Russie.

Relative to the suffering of Napoleon's soldiers during the bitter cold of Russian winters, includes methodology of resucitation of victims of freezing. Digital facsimile of thesis issue of the 1817 edition from the I…

1818

#9508

Secours à donner aux personnes empoisonnées ou asphyxiées, suivis des moyens propres à reconnaître les poisons et les vins frelatés et à distinguer la mort réelle de la mort apparente.

Translated into English by B. H. Black and published in 1819 as Directions for the treatment of persons who have taken poison, and those in a state of apparent death: Together with the means of detecting poisons and a…

1819

#2673

De l’auscultation médiate, ou traité du diagnostic des maladies des poumons et du coeur. 2 vols.

This book revolutionized the study of diseases of the chest. Auscultation in the instrumental sense dates from Laennec’s invention of the stethoscope (at first merely a roll of stiff paper) with a view to amplifying t…

1822

#6171

Mémoire sur l’auscultation appliquée à l’étude de la grossesse.

Although not the first to record the auscultation of the fetal heart sound, Le Jumeau (Kergaradec), a pupil of Laennec, brought the importance of this diagnostic procedure to the notice of the medical profession. Laen…

1824

#11599

Original cases with dissections and observations illustrating the use of the stethoscope and percussion in the diagnosis of diseases of the chest: Also commentaries on the same subjects selected and translated from Auenbrugger, Corvisart, Laennec and others

This is the earliest English work on the stethoscope. It "includes the first English translation of Auenbrugger's book on percussion, selected sections from Laennec's book on auscultation, and detailed reports from 39…

1825

#2074

Wanderings in South America, the North-West of the United States, and the Antilles, in the years 1812, 1816, 1820, and 1824.

Waterton traveled to the Guyana region of South America to obtain curare. He provided a detailed description of its paralyzing effects, its preparation by distillation, and the blowpipe and darts used to deliver it. O…

1825

#2674

An introduction to the use of the stethoscope.

Stokes, famous member of the Irish school of medicine, published the first systematic treatise on the use of the stethoscope – and this before his qualification at Edinburgh. His name is perpetuated in medical literat…

1825

#8375

On the nature of the function expressive of the law of human mortality, and on a new mode of determining the value of life contingencies.

Gompertz function. "Gompertz showed that over much of the adult human lifespan, age-specific mortality rates increased in an exponential manner. Gompertz's work played an important role in shaping the emerging statist…

1826

#14323

Traité de l'auscultation médiate ou traité diagnostic des maladies des poumons et du coeur. 2 vols.

Second edition, hugely revised, expanded, and improved. The pagination of the first edition (1819) was 456 pp. in vol. 1 and 472 pp. in vol. 2. The second edition was expanded to 728pp. in vol. 1 and 790 pp. in vol. 2…

1827

#2028.55

Recherches sur l’asphyxie.

“Leroy invented a two-bladed instrument to aid in the insertion of a laryngeal tube by the ability to control the direction of its tip. He also invented a limiting mechanism for the bellows, to enable given amounts of…

1828

#2675

De la percussion médiate.

Piorry, pioneer of mediate percussion, introduced the percussor and the pleximeter in 1826. He also developed refinements to Laennec’s stethoscope.

1838

#6175

Die geburtshülfiche Auscultation

Pioneering work on obstetric auscultation, including the sounds of the foetal heart. English translation by C. West, London, 1839.

1839

#1605.1

Die Krankheiten des höhren Alters und ihre Heilung. 2 vols.

Canstatt’s book is one of the most important in the history of gerontology, summarizing all previous work on the subject. Suffering from tuberculosis, Canstatt himself only lived to the age of 43. Digital facsimile fr…

1839

#2676

Abhandlung über Perkussion und Auskultation.

Skoda classified the various sounds obtained on percussion according to their musical pitch and tone. “Skoda’s resonance” is an important diagnostic sign in pneumonia and pericardial effusion. Following Skoda’s work, …

1844

#63

Thomae Sydenham, M. D., Opera omnia. Edidit Gulielmus Alexander Greenhill.

Sydenham has been called the “Father of English Medicine”. His reputation rests on his first-hand accounts of such conditions as the malarial fevers of his times, gout, scarlatina, measles, etc. A better edition of th…

1845

#11698

Accidents: Popular directions for their immediate treatment; with observations on poisons and their antidotes.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

1846

#8587

The young stethoscopist; or, the student's aid to auscultation.

Through this book Bowditch established the stethoscope as a diagnostic tool in America. Digital facsimile from the Medical Heritage Library, Internet Archive, at this link.

1847

#13772

Household surgery; or, hints on emergencies.

1848 –1850

#64

The works of Thomas Sydenham. Translated from the Latin edition of Dr. Greenhill with a life of the author by R.G. Latham. 2 vols.

Best English translation of Sydenham’s works.

1849

#13167

A practical treatise on the domestic management and most important diseases of advanced life. With an appendix, containing a series of cases illustrative of a new and successful mode of treating lumbago and other forms of chronic rheumatism, sciatica and other neuralgic affections, and certain forms of paralysis.

Digital facsimile from wellcomelibrary.org at this link.

1851

#2757

A practical treatise on the diseases of the lungs and heart, including the principles of physical diagnosis.

Walshe, physician to University College Hospital, London, was one of the first to recognize the presystolic character of the direct mitral murmur in mitral stenosis.