An essay on hydrocephalus acutus, or dropsy in the brain...

Philadelphia: Anthony Finley, 1814. FIRST AMERICAN EDITION. Contemporary tree calf, rebacked, spine label; margin of fly-leaf repaired, slight browning, otherewise a very nice copy from the library of George Milton Smith, with his small book-label. First American edition, originally published in 1808 in Edinburgh and London. "Cheyne's Essay, one of the first noteworthy monographs on neuropathology to appear in the nineteenth century, contains the first description of acute hydrocephalus or basilar (tuberculous) meningitis, a disease that primarily affects children. The work was a continuation of Robert Whytt's Observations on the dropsy in the brain (1768), in which Whytt gave the classic account of tuberculous menigitis" (Norman). This work was reissued by the same publisher in 1814 as part of Volume 2 of the author's Essays on the diseases of children.

Cheyne (1777-1836) graduated in medicine at Edinburgh, and later studied with Charles Bell. He was appointed physician to Meath Hospital in Dublin, and ultimately became known as the "founder of the Irish school of medicine.