Milestones of Science Books

HEBERDEN, William.

Commentaries on the History and Cure of Diseases.

London: T. Payne, 1802.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine. Item #002417

8vo (211 x 132 mm). v [5], 483 [1] pp. Contemporary half calf, rebacked, new endpapers. Text only little browned, occasional spotting. Provenance: The library of Hugh Selbourne. ----

Norman 1033, Heirs of Hippocrates 910; Wellcome III, p. 230; cf. Garrison-Morton 2207 (for Latin edition of same year) - FIRST EDITION in English. "Samuel Johnson called Heberden 'ultimus romanorum, the last of our learned physicians.' Heberden's Commentaries, originally published in Latin in the same year as the English translation, contains all of his important medical papers. These include an expanded version of his classic paper on angina pectoris, whose careful analysis of the various clinical symptoms placed knowledge on the disease on a scientific basis; Heberden was the first to describe its most striking symptom of oppression or pain in the chest. Also included is his account of the nodules in the terminal finger-joints ('Heberden's nodes') that occur in arthritis deformans; his paper on varicella (chicken pox), in which he clearly distinguished this disease from smallpox; and his account of night-blindness ('nyctalopia'). (Norman 1033).

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