Principles and Practice of Medicine

Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, 1844. First American from second London edition, greatly enlarged and improved.

1844 COMPREHENSIVE MID 19TH CENTURY MEDICAL TEXT BY HONORED ENGLISH PHYSICIAN LATER DISGRACED FOR FRAUDULENT PRACTICE.

9 1/2 inches tall hardcover, blue cloth binding, gilt black leather title label to spine, xvi, 1046 pp, publisher's adverts. Binding fine, new endpapers, browning to edges of first and last pages from exposure to original leather binding, bookplate of Dr. John A. Murphy, March 1900 to front endpaper, ink signature of previous owner top corner of title page, pages crisp and unmarked, with light scattered foxing, very good.

JOHN ELLIOTSON (1791 – 1868), professor of the principles and practice of medicine at University College London, and senior physician to University College Hospital. He was a prolific and influential author, a respected teacher, always at the 'leading edge' of his profession (one of the first to use and promote the stethoscope, and one of the first in Britain to use acupuncture). At his peak, he was the first President of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society (in 1833), a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal Society, he had one of the largest private practices in London and, at his peak, was one of the pre-eminent physicians in the entire British Empire. He became interested in phrenology, and was founder and first President of the London Phrenological Society (in 1823). His interest in mesmerism had been aroused initially by the demonstrations conducted by Richard Chenevix in 1829, and re-awakened by Dupotet de Sennevoy's demonstrations in 1837. This prompted Elliotson to begin experimenting with the Okey Sisters who had been admitted to his hospital, in April 1837, for treatment of their epilepsy. Elliotson soon began using them as subjects within the confines of the hospital, in public demonstrations of the so-called 'higher states' of mesmerism. A series of examinations conducted by Thomas Wakley and others, in August 1838, conclusively proved to all and sundry (apart from Elliotson) that the Okey Sisters were outright frauds. By the end of 1838, Elliotson was, in effect, expelled from the hospital. In 1846 — by this stage bereft of all his institutional affiliations — and despite many earnest efforts made to prevent him doing so, as the Royal College of Physicians' youngest fellow, Elliotson delivered the Harveian Oration to the Royal College of Physicians of London, in which he controversially spoke of how William Harvey, the man whom the Oration was honoring, had been forced to fight against the entrenched conservatism of the medical profession and its initial incredulity and resistance to his discoveries, and stressed the strength of the analogy with the current (equally misguided and ignorant) critics of mesmerism. As his reputation rapidly declined, his once lucrative practice also disappeared, and he died, penniless, in 1868.