signed first edition
1836 · Philadelphia:
by PARRISH, Joseph (1779-1840).
Philadelphia:: Key & Biddle, 1836., 1836. 232 x 143 mm. 8vo. xvii, 330 pp. 4 LITHOGRAPHIC PLATES; light foxing, about half of the text moderately browned. Contemporary full brown sheep, gilt spine, black leather spine label, rebacked with speckled gilt-lined calf. Bookplates of Robert K. Stone and Alfred Heacock Whittaker. Ownership signature of R. K. Stone, M. D., 1846 on title. Another ownership signature on title has been cut away, eliminating the printed word "on". Very good. Personal Copy of Dr. Robert K. Stone, physician to Abraham Lincoln. FIRST EDITION. Based on seventy-five detailed case reports, Parrish's Practical observations on strangulated hernia provides an excellent account of early nineteenth-century treatment of strangulated hernia and bladder and prostate problems. The book is dedicated to Philip Syng Physick (1768-1837). Parrish succeeded Physick in 1816 as surgeon to the Pennsylvania Hospital. Joseph Parrish was born in Philadelphia where he began his medical studies under Caspar Wistar and took his medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania. Parrish was one of the foremost physicians in Philadelphia. He was associated with the Philadelphia Dispensary, the Pennsylvania Hospital, Wills' Hospital, and was an active member of the College of Physicians. Parrish also took an active interest in natural history. PROVENANCE: [1] Robert King Stone (1822-1872) was an anatomist from Washington D. C., where he was born. He took an A.B. from Princeton in1842 and apprenticed under Dr. Thomas Miller in medicine in Washington. Stone studied at the National Medical College and then went to the University of Pennsylvania where he took his M.D. in 1845. In 1846 he went to Europe and studied the practices of hospitals in London, Edinburgh, Vienna, and Paris. He returned to Washington in 1847 where he began general practice, eventually rising to the chair of anatomy and physiology at the National Medical College. He specialized in ophthalmic and aural surgery. He was professor at Columbian College Medical School (predecessor to today's George Washington University School of Medicine). Stone served U.S. President Abraham Lincoln during the years of the American Civil War, frequently treating maladies from the Lincoln family. Stone was present at Lincoln's deathbed and at his autopsy in 1865. / On page 79 of this book Stone wrote: "I had a similar case . . . Wash. D. C. 1858. – Strangulated femoral hernia – after the operation, the symptoms instantly ceased: but she had no operation of the bowels for eight days – indeed the external wound was entirely healed before any discharge took place from the anus." Signed by Stone. / PROVENANCE: [2] Dr. Alfred Heacock Whittaker (1894-1983), received his M.D. degree from Ohio. State University, 1917; did research work at the University of Michigan and Western Reserve University; was house surgeon in the Cornell Branch of Bellevue Hospital; served at Roosevelt Hospital, N.Y.C. He built a substantial home library and especially enjoyed the writings of Charles Dickens. REFERENCES: Blocker, p. 303; Cordasco 30-0679; Kelly & Burrage, pp.941-942; Rutkow, History of surgery in the United States, GS13; Wellcome IV, p. 309.
(Inventory #: M14575)