Elihu Smith Editors (1 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Fair. 1st Edition. The Medical Repository. Volume I. Nos. I-IV. New-York: Printed by T. & J. swords, Printers to the Faculty of Physic of Columbia College, No. 99 Pearl-street. 1797-8. First Edition. Bound together in marbled paper covered boards, ex-library. Two Plates, 584 pp, 8.5 x 5.25". In fair condition. Marbled boards are normally scuffed at edges and worn at leather corners. Front board's top leather corner lacking. Repaired leather spine scuffed at head and tail. Front gutter split; repaired spine beginning to peel away from binding. Ink stamp remnants found on front paste-down. Title page of No. I detached. Previous ownership signature at top edges of all editions' title pages: Henry Mott". Ex-library ink stamp found on No. I's title page: "Mott Memorial Library. Med. & Surg." Normal age-related toning throughout text-block. Two plates in No. III exhibit moderate off-setting to adjacent leaves. Library binding is intact, front gutter split. Perfect candidate for restoration. Please see photos & ask questions, if any, before purchasing. SCARCE FIRST EDITION of the First American Medical Journal, The Medical Repository, founded by Samuel Latham Mitchill (August 20, 1764 September 7, 1831), Elihu Hubbard Smith (September 4, 1771 September 19, 1798), and Edward Miller & published in New York between 1797 and 1824. The journal's broad mission was to "illustrate the connection subsisting between Climate, Soil, Temperature, Diet, &c. and Health", which a particular focus on epidemic diseases such as cholera, smallpox and yellow fever. Includes Valentine Seaman's thematic maps of yellow fever outbreaks in Manhattan, which is generally accepted as the earliest published epidemiological maps & preceded John Snow's (1813-1858) work on cholera by half a century. Valentine Seaman (1770-1817) was first trained as a doctor under Dr. Nicholas Romayne (September 1756, in Hackensack, New Jersey 21 July 1817), in New York City), a founder of Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons. From 1796 on Seaman served as Attending Surgeon at New York Hospital. His particular research interests were shaped by family tragedy: his eldest child died of smallpox in 1795, and Seaman became interested in disease control, particularly the work of Englishman Edward Jenner, a pioneer of vaccination. Inspired by Jenner, Seaman became the first American doctor to offer the procedure, starting with his own family. In the 1790s, U.S. coastal cities of the eastern seaboard were blighted by successive waves of Yellow Fever outbreaks, with one in Philadelphia in 1793 killing 10% of the city's population. A number of smaller outbreaks occurred in New York, and these were the focus of Seaman's research, which, as an attending doctor, he witnessed first hand. He turned this research into a path-breaking article An Inquiry into the Cause of the Prevalence of the YELLOW FEVER in New-York, which appears in Vol. I No. III (page 315). Seaman illustrates his article with two untitled maps, both street plans of small areas of lower Manhattan. The first map is centered on Roosevelt Street, where a drain emptied into the East River. On the plan Seaman plots the locations of five deaths during the 1796 outbreak (numbers 1-5). He also plots several cases of yellow fever that ended in recovery (circles with dots), as well as "other cases of fever, of suspicious nature" (open circles). The second plan addresses the 1797 outbreak, focusing on the area around the Fly Market, also adjacent to the East River. Once again the locations of fatalities are numbered, and tiny cross mark waterside spots used by the populace as open privies, where the ground was "spattered. with their excrementitous depositions." At the time, it was not known how yellow fever spread; some blamed incoming ships from the tropics. The city's Committee of Health asked for Seaman's advice regarding the disease's causes and prevention; Seaman recommended filling in areas that were below sea-level and whereve.…