1740–1749

1740 CE

#4731

A case of extraordinary exostoses on the back of a boy.

Probably the earliest description of myositis ossificans progressiva. Freke was a friend of Fielding, who mentioned him in Tom Jones.

1740 CE

#2028.5

Avis pour donner du secours à ceux qui l’on croit noyez.

In this unsigned 4-page pamphlet the author argued that those who had been drowned for several hours could be resuscitated. His ideas inspired the formation of the Amsterdam Society (No. 2028.51). This anonymous work …

1740 CE

#8856

Bibliotheca botanica sive catalogus auctorum et librorum omnium qui de re botanica, de medicamentis ex vegetabilibus paratis, de re rustica, & de horticultura tractant. Accessit bibliotheca botanica Jo. Ant. Bumaldi seu potius O. Montalbani.

Organized in three parts: floras, medical botany, and horticultural and agricultural works. Séguier includes books, pamphlets, and references in the periodical literature. "The entries for the publications cont…

1740 CE

#13098

Catalogus ofte naamlyst der voornaamste zaken, dewelke op de anatomie-kamer der stadt Rotterdam te zien zyn.

Catalogue of the cabinet of curiosities of the anatomical theatre of Rotterdam, founded in 1642. Although anatomy theatres were originally established to teach anatomy and medical and surgical techniques to students a…

1740 CE

#2671

Essays medical and philosophical.

First important work on clinical thermometry, and the only scientific treatment of the subject before Wunderlich.

1740 CE

#803

Opera.

Valsalva described the aortic “sinus of Valsalva”.

1740 CE–1753 CE

#72

Opera omnia physico-medica. (Supplementum, etc) 9 vols.

Hoffmann of Halle was the most important of the Iatromechanists. He believed an ether-like “vital fluid” to be present in the nervous system and to act upon the muscles, giving them “tonus”.

1740 CE–1761 CE

#9561

Die monatlich-herausgegeben Insecten-Belustigung. 4 vols.

Spectacular hand-colored plates."Insecten-Belustigung, appeared in 1740 and was devoted to the insects and other invertebrates like the sea anemones. His classification of the insects followed a natural system and he …

1741 CE

#8024

El Orinoco ilustrado y defendido. Historia natural, civil y geográfica de este gran río y de sus caudalosas vertientes, govierno, usos, y costumbres de los indios sus habitadores, con nuevas, y utiles noticias de animales, arboles, frutos, aceytes, resinas, yervas, y raices medicinales ...

Inspired by the success of Acosta’s Natural History, Gumilla wrote lush descriptions of native life along the Orinoco River in Venezuela and Colombia. His characterization of local healing practices was informat…

1741 CE

#13383

A mechanical and critical enquiry into the nature of hermaphrodites.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

1741 CE

#4301

L’orthopédie ou l’art de prévenir et de corriger dans les enfans, les difformités du corps. 2 vols.

The first book specifically on orthopedics, which term Andry himself introduced. He advised attention to proper posture in the prevention and correction of spinal curvature; he had a practical knowledge of body mechan…

1741 CE

#395.2

Tabulae anatomicae.

27 anatomical copperplates after drawings by the most influential painter of the Italian Baroque movement, who also excelled as an architect. The editor, Cajetano Petrioli, supplied the text and small numbered anatomi…

1741 CE–1750 CE

#6837

Het Amboinsche Kruidboek . . . Herbarium Amboinense . . . nunc primum in lucem edidit & in Latinum semonem vertit Joannes Burmannus. 6 vols.

Het Amboinsche kruidboek or Herbarium Amboinense, a catalogue of the plants of Ambon in the Maluku Islands of Indonesia, by Georg Eberhard Rumphius, a German-born soldier and botanist employed by the Dutch East India …

1741 CE–1751 CE

#10344

Nuevo aspecto de theologia medico-moral y ambos derechos, ó paradoxas phisico-theologico-legales. 3 vols.

Rodríguez, a self-taught Cistercian monk, dealt with issues in medical ethics in this manual for confessors.

1742 CE

#3672

A practical treatise upon dentition; or, the breeding of teeth in children.

The first English book on children’s teeth. Reprinted, Dawson, 1966. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

1742 CE

#6151

A treatise of midwifry.

The teaching of Ould did much towards the advancement of midwifery in the British Isles. His Treatise is the first text-book of obstetrics of any importance in English.

1742 CE

#11407

An mortis incertae signa minus incerta a chirurgicis quam ab aliis experimenti?

Between the mid-1700s and the early 1900s many physicians lost confidence in their ability to declare legal death. This phenomenon was in part sparked by Winslow, whose dissertation claimed the existence of a death-li…

1742 CE

#3423

De mutuo intestinorum ingressu.

First recorded successful operation for intussusception in an adult. The paper is also included in Haller’s Disputationes, vol. 1.

1742 CE

#1691

Die göttliche Ordnung in denen Veränderungen des menschlichen Geschlechts.

Süssmilch, a German army chaplain, produced an important book on vital statistics, the title of which translates as The divine order in the circumstances of the human sex, birth, death and reproduction. Among oth…

1742 CE

#1548

Dissertatio medica de auditu in genere et de illo que fit per os in specie.

Pyl was the first (page 20) to record the labyrinthine fluid and to discuss its rôle in the transmission of sound.

1742 CE

#396

Essais anatomiques.

Lieutaud rectified many anatomical errors, described carefully the structure and relations of the heart and its cavities, and added to the contemporary knowledge concerning the bladder. The trigonum vesicae is named &…

1742 CE

#11741

Index testarum conchyliorum quae adservantur in Museo Nicolai Gualtieri ... et methodice distributae exhibentur tabulae CX.

The beautiful catalogue of the shell collection formed by Gualtieri, physician to Cosimo III, Grand Duke of Tuscany in his "museum." Many of the shells are depicted standing on their apices, and are depicted from two …

1742 CE

#73

Opera omnia medica.

Boerhaave created of the modern method of clinical teaching. His writings had an enormous influence during his lifetime. Haller, Cullen, Pringle, van Swieten and de Haen were among his pupils. See Lindeboom, Herman Bo…

1742 CE

#13321

Religiosa hospitalidad por los hijos del piadoso coripheo patriarcha y padre de pobres S. Iuan Ð Dios en su provincia de S. Raphael de las Islas Philipinas: Compendio substancial de su fundacion progressos y estado presente que en sucinto informatibo estilo...

Maldonado de Puga, a member of the Order of San Juan Hospitalier founded in 1572, reported on the introduction and practice of Western medicine in the Philippines, the foundation of hospitals and the relationship betw…

1742 CE

#396.1

Syndesmologia sive historia ligamentorum corporis humani.

Weitbrecht is known for “Weitbrecht’s ligament” (of the elbow), “Weitbrecht’s foramen ovale” (gap in the capsule of the shoulder joint between the glenohumeral ligaments), and &ldqu…

1742 CE–1743 CE

#13442

Bibliotheca Meibomiana hoc est Henrici Meibomii...supellex libraria....a Io. Nicolao Froesio. 2 vols.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

1742 CE–1776 CE

#2200

Commentaria in Hermanni Boerhaave aphorismos, de cognoscendis et curandis morbis. 6 vols.

A pupil of Boerhaave, van Swieten transplanted the latter’s method of teaching to Vienna and founded the Vienna School of Medicine. He spent many years on the preparation of his great Commentaria. English transl…

1743 CE

#1596

A description of ventilators.

Hales devised a ventilator, by means of which fresh air could be introduced into jails, mines, hospitals, the holds of ships, etc. The invention met with immediate approval and contributed much towards health of those…

1743 CE

#306

An attempt towards a natural history of the polype.

1743 CE

#5416

An essay on inoculation, occasioned by the small-pox being brought into South Carolina in the year 1738.

After its initial popularity, inoculation fell into disuse in England. Kirkpatrick, who became a prominent inoculator in England after experience in America, helped considerably in reviving its popularity. He attempte…

1743 CE

#765.1

Dissertationem inauguralem de vera nervi intercostalis origine.

Taube described the carotid body and named it “ganglion minutum”, See J. Pick, J. Hist. Med., 1959, 14, 61-73.

1743 CE

#3672.1

Essai sur les maladies des dents, où l'on propose les moyens de leur procurer une bonne conformation dès la plus tendre enfance...

The first book incorporating specialized odontological research. Dissatisfied with the incomplete coverage of dental problems that he found in the works of Fauchard and Gerauldy, Bunon addressed such issues as dental …

1743 CE

#12478

Flora Virginica exhibens plantas quas v. c. Johannes Clayton in Virginia observavit atque collegit. Easdem method sexuali-disposuit, ad genera propria retulit, nominbus specificis insignivit, & minus cognitas descriptsit.

The first flora of Virginia. As stated on the title page, Gronovius, a Dutch botanist, based this work on specimens collected by the Virginia plant collector and botanist John Clayton. While Clayton supplied the speci…

1743 CE

#4163

Mémoire sur quelques obstacles qui s’opposent à l’éjaculation naturelle de la semence.

“Peyronie’s disease”, a noncancerous condition resulting from fibrous scar tissue that develops on the penis and causes curved, and sometimes painful erections.

1743 CE

#13922

Museum Richterianum continens fossilia animalia, vegetabilia marina.

Catalogue of the cabinet of curiosities formed by the merchant and collector Johann Richter. Digital facsimile from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

1743 CE

#3248

Sur une bronchotomie faite avec succès.

Virgili is said to have performed successful tracheotomy at Cadiz, for quinsy (peritonsillar abscess)

1743 CE–1745 CE

#6799

A medicinal dictionary: Including physic, surgery, anatomy, chymistry, and botany, in all their branches relative to medicine. Together with a history of drugs; An account of their various preparations, combinations, and uses; and an introductory preface tracing the progress of physic, and explaining theories which have principally prevail'd in all ages of the world. With copper plates. 3 vols.

The largest, most exhaustive and most learned medical dictionary written in English prior to the early 19th century. Samuel Johnson wrote the dedication and some of the articles. This was Johnson’s first venture…

1743 CE–1756 CE

#397

Icones anatomicae. 8 pts.

Accurate and beautiful engravings of the diaphragm, uterus, ovaries, vagina, arteries, with explanatory observations. About fifty years after they were originally published the most visually spectacular versions of Ha…

1744 CE

#1987.1

Abhandlung von dem Nutzen der Electricität in der Artzneywissenschaft.

A student of Johann Gottlob Krüger (No. 1987.2), Kratzenstein was apparently the first to publish a treatise on electrotherapy, although he may have been publishing experiments devised by Krüger. Second edit…

1744 CE

#4302

De iis, qui ex tuberculis gibberosi fiunt.

Platner affirmed the tuberculous nature of humpback, which had earlier been surmised by Hippocrates and confirmed by Galen.

1744 CE

#215.1

Dissertation physique à l’occasion du nègre blanc.

Stimulated by the much talked about appearance of an albino negro in Paris, Maupertuis expressed theories of biparental heredity and epigenesis which substantially anticipated those of Darwin, Mendel, and De Vries nea…

1744 CE

#3355

Instruments proposed to remedy some kinds of deafness proceeding from obstructions in the external and internal auditory passages.

Cleland, an army surgeon, devised the method of catheterization of the Eustachian tube by way of the nose; he designed the instruments necessary for the operation.

1744 CE

#9341

M. T. Cicero's Cato major, or his course of old-age: with explanatory notes.

This work was Banjamin Franklin's personal favorite of the works printed by him, and is one of the finest books to emanate from a Colonial American press. It was the first classical text printed in North America, and …

1744 CE

#307

Mémoires, pour servir à l’histoire d’un genre de polypes d’eau douce, à bras en forme de cornes.

Trembley discovered the hydra and was the first to observe in it asexual reproduction, regeneration, and photosensitivity in an animal without eyes. His experiments were of great importance in the study of regeneratio…

1744 CE

#10814

The art of preserving health: A poem.

John Armstrong was the brother of George Armstrong. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link. The edition consisted of 1250 of which 50 were on "fine paper."

1744 CE

#11991

The method of treating gunshot wounds.

Describes surgical cases that Ranby treated under Lord Stair in the German campaign up to the Battle of Dettingen. While the Earl of Stair exercised operational control, the Allied army was nominally commanded by Geor…

1744 CE

#1987.2

Zuschrifft an seine Zuhörer worinnen er ihnen seine Gedancken von der Electricität mittheilet und ihnen zugleich seine künftige Lectionen bekant macht.

Along with Kratzenstein, is the one of the first two works to discuss the possible therapeutic uses of electricity. Krüger predicted that the best results would be with paralyzed limbs. See No. 1987.1. Second edi…

1745 CE

#2094

An essay on the West-India dry-gripes… to which is added, an extraordinary case in physick.

Cadwalader, an American pupil of Cheselden, left a classical account of lead colic and lead palsy. This was later shown by Benjamin Franklin, printer of the above work, to be due to the consumption of Jamaica rum whic…

1745 CE

#1831

Aνтιθηεριακά. An essay on mithridatium and theriaka.

Heberden’s first printed work. His criticism of current superstitions conceming these two concoctions resulted ultimately in their removal from the pharmacopoeia. No publisher's name appears on the title page. D…

1745 CE

#10474

Berg-Raths Medicinischer Aufstand und Schmelz-Bogen Von der Bergsucht und Hütten-Katze auch einigen andern, Denen Bergleuten und Hütten-Arbeitern zustoßenden Krankheiten, Vor dieselben und diejenigen So in Stein, Erz, Metall und Feuer arbeiten, ausgestellet.

A key early work on the Bergsucht or miner's phthisis.