New-York: Rudd & Carleton, 1861. First American edition. 8vo, original gilt- and blind-stamped green cloth (with an attractive gilt skull on the spine), gilt lettering, 490, [2] pages. Frontis after Hogarth. An entertaining compilation of historical anecdote, which met with sufficient success to encourage Jeaffreson to follow up with A...... More
[Emportia]: Emporia Gazette Press, 1942. First edition. 8vo, original gilt-stamped blue cloth, 292 pages. Illus. Original pictorial dust jacket. Detailed history compiled by the Federal Writers’ Project, under the guidance of the Kansas State Nurses’ Association. With a nice appropriate gift inscription on the front free endpaper, “Miss Carolyn Ogden..... More
Paris: Victor Masson, 1853. First edition. 8vo, original printed wrappers, 150 pages, unopened. Illus. A presentation copy, inscribed in ink to a doctor and signed La Corbière. Suggestive of the relationship between free thought and progressive causes and the practice of phrenology, a monograph from the ex-Carbonaro and 1830 revolutionary..... More
Philadelphia: Marshall, Clark and Co.; Providence: Marshall, Brown and Co., 1833. First edition. 8vo, original blue muslin, 79, [1] pages. One piece of a puzzle that may lead to the first student of African descent to have graduated from Harvard Medical School. Alumni publications list Bertrand François Bugard was a...... More
Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1863. First edition. 8vo (7.88 x 5.13 inches), original blind-stamped purple cloth, gilt lettering, 360 pages. Illus. in the text. Atwater 2242: "Lewis discusses the causes of consumption (e.g., impure air, dust, atmospheric moisture, etc.); the much exaggerated influence of climate in the production or amelioration..... More
(Cleveland: Press of the Publishing House of the Evangelical Association), 1908. Stated twenty-second edition. 8vo, original blind-stamped green cloth, gilt lettering, xvi, [1]-31, 31a-31b, 32, 32a-32b, 33-433, 15, [4] pages. Frontis portrait. Copyright 1878, though the (ample) testimonial letters run through 1905. On the impurity of blood as the root..... More
New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., (1978). First edition. Hardcover. Folio, original black cloth, 616 pages. Illus. Original pictorial dust jacket. An attractive survey, substantial enough perhaps to call for a reinforced coffee table. More
Venezia: Antonio Graziosi, 1774. Third Italian edition. 8vo, contemporary vellum spine, sprinkled boards, [2], 164 pages. A nice early Italian edition of this critical work in the pathologization of masturbation. Perhaps an obversation might be made on the spread of a fundamentally Protestant approach to the idea of a “solitary..... More
London: Printed by G. Taylor, 1834. First edition. 8vo, removed pamphlet (no wrappers), 109, [2] pages. A sterling and entrepreneurial example of taking legal lemons and transforming them into marketing lemonade, the account of a trial of Joseph Webb, a self-styled "hygeist" who prescribed for an ailing Richard Richardson a...... More
Charleston [S. C.]: Printed by J. S. Burges, 183 King-St. 1834. First edition. Unbound pamphlet, 9 x 5.75 inches, stitched as issued, untrimmed, 23, [1] pages. Unopened. A salvo in an ongoing controversy among the medical men of South Carolina, between the Medical College of South Carolina and the Medical..... More
Boston: Published by Bradford & Read, 1815. First American edition. 8vo, original tree calf, red morocco label, gilt rules and lettering, 442, [2] pages. The detailed clinical descriptions of fevers from the Scottish physician and moderate eccentric (see the DNB), here with corrections for the American edition. Nice early book..... More
[Norwich, Conn.]: Chas. C. Haskell & Son, 1898. First edition. Original self-wrappers, 6.13 x 3.5 inches, 60 pages on newsprint, wire stitched. A promotional piece for Haskell and Son’s 1898 republication of the combined edition of Dewey’s True Science of Living: The Gospel of Health and for the republication of..... More
Philadelphia: Printed and Sold by William Spotswood, 1793. First American edition. 12mo, original sheep, red leather label, gilt lettering, 216 pages. “If the human body could be subjected to such decisive experiments, as have so wonderfully improved our knowledge in natural philosophy, during this century, then the causes of internal..... More
Worthington, Ohio: Printed for the Proprietors, by Scott & Gallagher, 1836-1838. First edition. 8vo, contemporary calf, black leather labels, gilt lettering, [i]-iv, [17]-384; [i]-iv, [1]-192 pages. An important eclectic medical journal from the early Ohio medical school at Worthington (this volume in a contemporary binding and bound without issue number..... More
Hartsville [Steuben Co., New York], Feb. 12, 1854. 3 pages on an unlined bifolium, 9.88 x 7.88 inches, approx. 850 words. No cover. Isaac Downs (1818-1910) writes to his parents with personal news and detailed discussion of local agricultural prices and his luck on working with a team of steers..... More
[Highland Park, Illinois: n. p.], 1910. A later edition; the first appeared in 1905. 16mo (5.75 x 4.5 inches), wire stitched pamphlet in original printed green wrappers, 96 pages. With the wrapper title, Guide to Autology. The Quebec-born graduate of Harvard Medical School seems to have created a drug-free home..... More
New York: Fowler & Wells Co., Publishers, 1888. A later printing of the second edition. 8vo, original decorated brown cloth, gilt lettering, [4], 294, [6] pages. The first edition was published in 1883, the second (with the added appendix to the second edition) was published in 1884. Page counsels a...... More
London: John Churchill, 1862. First edition. 8vo, removed pamphlet (no wrappers), viii, 60 pages + 7 pages of ads. "It may, perhaps, by considered by some persons that the present is not a very pleasant, or a very delicate subject to discuss." A presentation copy, with an ink inscription on..... More
Boston: Marsh, Capen & Lyon, 1832. First edition. 8vo, removed pamphlet (no wrappers), 32 pages. The German phrenology pioneer died in Boston of typhoid while on tour in America; he was given an elaborate funeral, including this laudatory address from the Harvard professor Follen, published here by perhaps the leading..... More
Paris: Victor Masson, 1853. First edition. Original printed wrappers, 8.88 x 5.63 inches, 150 pages. Illus. A presentation copy, inscribed in ink on the half-title and signed La Corbière. Suggestive of the relationships between free thought, progressive causes, and the practice of phrenology, a monograph from the ex-Carbonaro, 1830 revolutionary..... More
New York: Fowler & Wells Co., 1884. Stated fourth edition. Original printed drab wrappers, 7.25 x 4.88 inches, 34, [10] pages, wire stitched. First published by the phrenological and health reform house Fowler & Wells in 1881, essentially an extended advertisement for the Health Food Company of New York—which appears..... More
Philadelphia: C. Sherman & Co., Printers, 1840. First edition. Original printed green wrappers, 9 x 5.5 inches, 23, [1] pages, stitched as issued. The detailed outlines of twelve lectures on physiology, meant to popularize scientific knowledge; Coates includes such topics as “Preposterous doctrines of the Thomsonians” and “Phrenological distinction of..... More
[Boston: n. p., ca. 1879]. First edition. Broadside, approx. 8.5 x 5 inches. Illus. Manufactured by William M. Allen of Boston, a promotional piece for a simple patent rubber cover for the overflow in a sinnk to save you from "Death from Poisonous Gases," or otherwise to "protect your Children..... More
New-York: Published by Daniel Hitt and Thomas Ware, for the Methodist Connexion in the United States, J. C. Totten, Printer, 1814. Fifth edition of the Wilkins; stated twenty-seventh edition of the Wesley. 2 vols in 1, as published, 12mo, original calf, gilt-ruled spine, 144; 142, [2] pages. A popular early..... More
Cöthen [i.e., Köthen]: heim Verfasser, In Commission dei F. A. Gupel in Sondershausen, 1862. Stated forty-first edition. Original wrappers and string tie, 4.75 x 4 inches, iv, 92 pages. A popular pamphlet on health, including instructions on diet, from the pioneering homeopathic healer Lutze (1813-1870), published under the nominal imprint..... More
