The American Botanist, and Family Physician: In which the medical virtues of the Minteral, Animal and Vegetable productions of North America are exhibited . . . Likewise, a Large Number of Indian Discoveries in the Medical Art, Never Before Published. By John Monroe. Compiled by Silas Gaskill.
Wheelock, (Vt.): Published by Jonathan Morrison; Danville: Eben’r. Eaton, Printer, 1824. First edition. 12mo (6.5 x 4 inches), original calf over scaleboard, morocco spine label lettered in gilt, 203, [1] pages. Lacks front free endpaper; chipped at the head and foot of the spine, upper corners of the each board broken; some general light soiling, scattered light staning, and general wear; in good condition. Item #21774
“Whilst among the Indians, the Author was a particular intimate and confidant of a native Indian, who had been instructed in all the arts of civilized life, and had received the advantages of a liberal and polite education, being regularly bred a physician in the medical department of the Pennsylvania University, established at Philadelphia. . . . Whilst with this Indian, the Author had not only an opportunity of learning the Indian methods of treating disorders, and the medical virtues of the vegetable kingdom, but likewise of gaining much literary and scientific knowledge.”
Monroe’s capsule prefatory memoir notes he is a native of northern New Hampshire and a Vermont resident who has traveled in nine American states to collect medical knowledge from the Indians, English, and Germans. Monroe’s work is bound two parts in one, the first and most extensive being a materia medica for a popular audience, and the latter organized by ailment; the work concludes with a study of occupational and general hazards to health, adapted from Buchan:
“Some people are so presumptuous as to plunge themselves, when they are hot, into cold water. Not only fevers, but madness itself is frequently the effect of this conduct,” etc.
Penciled sums and doodles in the endpapers; early pencil ownership signature of a Cynthia Wallace in the gutter of the title page.
Price: $250.00