Stampless cover autograph letter to Dr. Ira Prouty of Langdon, N. H.
Saxtons River [Vermont], August 5, 1840. Autograph letter signed R. A. Severance, two pages (plus a few lines to a third) on a folio measuring 9.5 x 7.75 inches, approx. 525 words. Some damp-staining to the second leaf but overall in good to very good condition, quite legible. Item #22496
The practice of medicine in a village in Vermont, a physician writes to his colleague across the river in New Hampshire with a few updates and some medication shop talk: “Yours with the books has been just now rec’d by your father, & I hasten to send a reply, although it must necessarily be short. The bones by a singular good fortune have remained in Mr. C’s barn in a state of tolerable preservation.” Severance follows with some technical discussions of the possible causes of dysuria with a patient of Prouty’s who had suffered a prolapsed uterus: “Blundell recommends leeches above the symphysis pubis,” Severance then recounts a case history of a consultation: “I saw a fatal case of inflammation of the pericardium, which supervened upon Rheumatism. Effusion had already taken place when I first saw her, which was in consultation with Dr. Perry of Grafton, 3 days before death. . . .The patient had been delivered of a child about 4 weeks previous to the attack, & had continued to afford sufficient nourishment for her infant until the time of my visit. Her appearance was exsanguine in the extreme, & to my mind indicated effusion into the pericardium. I accordingly thought it my duty to apprise her physician & husband that the danger of sudden death was imminent. The event proved the correctness of the prognosis, as death came upon her in a moment, & she was gone before her friends were hardly aware of his approach.” Severance concludes with news of colleagues (including Amariah Brigham’s recent appointment to direct the Hartford Retreat for the Insane) and an invitation to Prouty and his wife to visit. No postal marks, presumably delivered by a friend acting as courier.
Price: $250.00