A dictionary of medicine

New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1883. SECOND AMERICAN EDITION. Blue buckram, author, title and date in gilt on spine; new endpapers, title page and following leaf repaired, generally a very good copy. Second American edition, first published in London the prior year. The publication was heralded as a move toward modernization of the medical dictionary. In a contemporary review by The Spectator, it was noted that “the volume does not aim at furnishing the reader with more than a general view of each subject; secondly, the editor has extended the term ‘medicine’ so as not only to overlap considerably the borders of surgery, but to include much of what has been far too little studied by medical men, public and personal hygiene. Dr. Quain has been fortunate in associating the best-known names in medical science with his own in the execution of his difficult task. The signatures to the various articles are a guarantee of the adequate treatment of their respective subjects, and the volume has a weight and authority as the expression of the views of the profession which render it a guide as safe as indispensable to the practitioner.”

Quain (1800-1887) was a much-beloved Irish physician who practiced in London. He sat on many commissions and boards of professional organizations. He was appointed physician extraordinary to Queen Victoria and later became a baronet.