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xxiv, 485 pages, plus 2 pages publisher's adverts at the end. Original yellow endpapers. Small contemporary ink smudge on page 57. Short marginal closed tear on first thee leaves but not affecting the text. 15.5 x 23.5 cm. Original black embossed cloth, with original spine laid down.Gilt lettering and date on spine. Corners very slightly bumped and worn. Printed, double-sided contemporary price list from Morson, Chemist, loosely tipped in. The verso has many lightly pencilled price additions in a contemporary hand and a separate small sheet of contemporary embossed ivory notepaper with about 9-10 lines of notes in a spidery ink hand on the subject of medicines. Thomas Newborn Robert Morson, pharmaceutical entrepreneur, was the founder of the firm of Thomas Morson & Son, of London, which became a leading manufacturer, wholesaler and retailer of pharmaceutical chemicals and proprietary medicines during the nineteenth century. After an apprenticeship to a surgeon-apothecary in London, T.N.R. Morson spent three years in Paris (1818-21) studying under the chemist Louis Antoine Planche; he was thus equipped to introduce French science into the traditional world of the British apothecary. He was also a man of wide scientific and cultural interests, with contacts and friendships throughout British and continental science, although relatively little remains of his private correspondence. He was prominent in the foundation of the Pharmaceutical Society, and was elected President in 1848. Morsons was particularly notable for the manufacture and sale of the new vegetable alkaloids which were identified in the early part of the nineteenth century in France, and indeed was the first British producer, from 1821, of quinine sulphate and morphine (there are nine differnet preparations of morphine in this printed list). At this date the business was operated from 65 Fleet Market. From 1824 Bloomsbury was the main locus of activity, with laboratory, factory and retail shop being maintained at 19, Southampton Row. Later the company shifted manufacturing into the suburbs, to Hornsey, Homerton, and by the turn of the century, Ponders End, Enfield, at which time the retail side of the business was wound up. By the 1860s Morsons was producing over five hundred different chemical substances, mainly of medicinal application. By the end of the century the firm had a world-wide export business, especially to India. In 1915 the company was incorporated as Thomas Morson & Son Ltd. Neligan, John Moore (1815 1863), physician and dermatologist, was born in Clonmel, co. Tipperary. His father was a medical practitioner who died when he was young; his mother was Macella, daughter of William Hayes, of co. Limerick. Neligan graduated MD at Edinburgh in 1836. He first published in 1844 Medicines, their Uses and Mode of Administration, which gives an account of all the drugs mentioned in the London, Scottish, and Irish pharmacopeias, and of some others. Their sources, medicinal actions, doses, and most useful compounds are clearly stated; and the compilation, though containing no original matter, was useful to medical practitioners, and went through many editions. Seller Inventory # 4457
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