A System of Surgery. Extracted from the Works of Benjamin Bell, of Edinburgh: By Nicholas B. Waters, M.D. Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, and one of the Physicians and Surgeons to the Philadelphia Dispensary. Illustrated with Notes and Copperplates

Waters, Nicholas B. (Bell, Benjamin)

Published by T. Dobson - Philadelphia, 1791

About this Item

Full leather with maroon title box to spine and gilt lettering and horizontal rulings. Book is tight and square with just a few slighltly loose pages and rubbing to the edges and corners of boards. Free of major flaws or markings inside and out, other than a white spot to front, the aforementioned wear, general toning to pages, and the signature of the prior and original 1791 owner, Cyrus Hamlin. Provenance is detailed in a laid-in hand-written note - this was the original copy used by Cyrus Hamlin, father of the future Vice-President of the USA, Hannibal Hamlin, under Abraham Lincoln, when he attended Harvard Medical School in 1793. Purchased from the Hamlin estate in 2022. All 12 fold-out plates, which appear in the Appendix along with a complete text explanation of each, were engraved by James Trenchard. They are all in Good+ or better condition with small closed tears to some of them. They depict various surgical instruments. This is the First Edition of the American abridgment of Bell's 6-volume System of Surgery (1782 -87) in which Bell, amongst many other advances such as developments in vascular surgery, advocated the routine use of opium to relieve post-operative pain, "to be able to alleviate the misery of those who are obliged to submit to dangerous operations must afford the biggest gratification to every practitioner". In his preface, the editor, Waters, credits the famous New York surgeon John Jones with reviewing the manuscript and with adding footnotes, which appear throughout. Jones was the author of the first surgical text by an American.

Seller Inventory # blb05613

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A System of Surgery. Extracted from the Works of Benjamin Bell, of Edinburgh: By Nicholas B. Waters, M.D. Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, and one of the Physicians and Surgeons to the Philadelphia Dispensary. Illustrated with Notes and Copperplates
• Publisher: T. Dobson - Philadelphia
• Publication Date: 1791
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Medical/Hospitals
  • Science
  • 18th Century