Milestones of Science Books

SYME, James.

Treatise on the Excision of Diseased Joints.

Edinburgh: Printed by John Stark for Adam Black et al. 1831.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Item #002428

8vo (213 x 135 mm). viii, 163 [1] pp., 5 lithographed plates by Daniel Lizars bound at the end; plate exlamation on final unnumbered page. Contemporary half calf over marbled boards, spine with gilt-lettered morocco label (leather dry and rubbed, corners scuffed, inner hinge split). Text little age toned ony, the first endpaper, title and preliminaries with light waterstaining at head, plates somewhat foxed. Provenance: Medical library of the University of Manchester (loosely inserted library paper slip with note that this copy is deaccessioned because it is a duplicate; ink stamps to title, a few text pages and first and final plate). ----

FIRST EDITION of this medical-surgical publication on the excision of degenerated joints and bones and its merits in comparison with amputation. The books is exceptionally rare: we can trace only one copy that has been sold at auction in the past 50 years (Sothebys London 1972).
James Syme FRCSE, FRCS, FRSE (1799-1870) was a pioneering Scottish surgeon, who became assistant and demonstrator of the dissecting room of Robert Liston in 1818 and in 1824 founded the Brown Square School of Medicine. Announcing his intention to practise surgery only after being unable to fill a vacancy at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, Syme started a surgical hospital of his own, Minto House hospital where he worked from May 1829 to September 1833, with great success as a surgical charity and school of clinical instruction. It was here that he first put into practice his method of clinical teaching, which consisted in having the patients to be operated or prelected upon brought from the ward into a lecture-room or theatre where the students were seated conveniently for seeing and taking notes. His private practice had become very considerable, his position having been assured ever since his amputation at the hip joint in 1823, the first operation of the kind in Scotland. In 1833 he succeeded James Russell as professor of clinical surgery in Edinburgh University. Syme's accession to the clinical chair was marked by two important changes in the conditions of it: the first was that the professor should have the care of surgical patients in the infirmary in right of his professorship, and the second, that attendance on his course should be obligatory on all candidates for the medical degree. When Liston removed to London in 1835 Syme became the leading consulting surgeon in Scotland. The celebrated ankle-joint amputation is known by his name. (Wikisource).
References: Wellcome V, p. 227; Garrion-Morton 4457; Waller 9437.

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