The Diseases of Children

Dublin: Hodges and Smith, 1850. First printing.

PEDIATRIC TEXT BY BRITISH OBSTETRICIAN, COPY OF CONTEMPORARY PHYSICIAN AND PUBLIC HEALTH ADVOCATE.

18.5 x 12 x 4 cm hardcover, black cloth binding, gilt title to spine, inscribed front free endpaper, "Henry Behrend MRGJL, Liverpool, Sept 1850," and in same hand, "Lexi October 50, March 51" top of front paste-down. Bookplate of Charing Cross Medical School, small handstamp of library to endpapers and title page, i-xi, 656 pp, copious notes to pp 198-228 (chapter on pertussis). Very good in custom archival mylar cover.

FLEETWOOD CHURCHILL (1808–1878) was an English physician, known as an obstetrician and medical writer. He was apprenticed to a general practitioner at Nottingham in 1822, and then studied in London, Dublin, Paris, and Edinburgh, where he graduated M.D. in 1831. He went in 1832 to Dublin to study midwifery, and set up in practice there. Having become a licentiate of the King and Queen's College of Physicians, Churchill was involved in establishing a small maternity hospital and instructed students in midwifery there. In 1851 an honorary degree of M.D. was conferred upon him by Trinity College, Dublin; he was king's professor of midwifery in the School of Physic from 1856 to 1864; he was twice president of the Obstetrical Society of Dublin, in 1856 and 1864; and he was president of the King and Queen's College of Physicians in 1867–8. He was a supporter of foreign missions, and was also a sanitary reformer in Dublin, a founder in 1850 of the Sanitary Association. About two years and a half before his death, in failing health, he retired, presented his obstetrical library to the Ireland College of Physicians.

PROVENANCE: HENRY BEHREND (1828 – 1893) was a British physician, public health advocate and Jewish communal leader active in Liverpool and London during the nineteenth century. He pursued medical studies at University College Hospital in London and later continued his studies at Manchester. In 1850 Behrend was elected a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He became a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1859 and was elected a member of the same institution in 1868. He began his professional practice in Liverpool, where he served as honorary physician to the Liverpool Dispensary and other local institutions. He also held the post of surgeon in a Lancashire militia regiment. Later he established a successful practice in London. Behrend contributed extensively to medical literature. In 1852 he published a series of articles in The Lancet on the recent cholera epidemic. His studies on zoonotic transmission were translated into several European languages. He published writings defending sheḥitah and other Jewish dietary regulations. His article "Diseases Caught from Butchers' Meat" appeared in The Nineteenth Century and was later reprinted along with related contributions in book form. In his writings on tuberculosis, Behrend argued that human and bovine forms of the disease were closely related and transmissible between species, and criticized the inadequacy of contemporary meat inspection practices in England. He observed the rarity of tuberculosis among Jewish patients, and pointed to the high rate of animal rejections during slaughter under Jewish dietary regulations as a possible factor in reducing exposure. Behrend played a central role in the administration of the Jews' Hospital and Orphan Asylum at Norwood. His leadership was credited with strengthening the institution and establishing its reputation as one of the best-managed orphan asylums in the United Kingdom at that time.