Treatise on the Physical and Medical Treatment of Children

Philadelphia: H.C. Carey and L. Lea, 1825. First edition.

SCARCE FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST AMERICAN TEXTBOOK ON PEDIATRICS THAT WENT THROUGH 11 EDITIONS.

8 1/2 inches tall hardcover, full leather binding, rebacked with new leather spine, red leather label with gilt title, contemporary ink signatures of previous owners to front free endpaper and top of title page, i-xiv, 496 pp. Cover corners repaired, browning to pages, scattered ink spots, binding tight. Very good minus copy of this scarce first edition.

GARRISON-MORTON No. 6331 "First American textbook on pediatrics."

WILLIAM POTTS DEWEES (1768 - 1841) earned his MD from the University of Pennsylvania, where he would become Professor of Obstetrics, and Chair of Obstetrics from 1834 to 1841. In 1819, Dewees was elected to the American Philosophical Society. His fame comes mainly from three books published in quick succession in the mid-1820s, each of which went to at least ten editions: Compendious System of Midwifery (1824), Treatise on the Physical and Medical Treatment of Children (1825), and Treatise on the Diseases of Females (1826). Treatise on the Physical and Medical Treatment of Children was published well after the death of Dewees, with the 11th edition appearing in 1858.