Talks to My Patients; Hints on Getting Well and Keeping Well

Octavo, 7.5 x 5.25", green cloth with gilt lettering, 228 pp, real albumen photo tipped in as frontispiece. Seventh edition, first published in 1870. A guide to women's health by Rachel Brooks Gleason, the fourth woman to earn a medical degree in the United States, who, together with her husband, ran the Elmira Water Cure, a health resort specializing in women's ailments. The resort catered to upper class women and included Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony among its clientele. Gleason also had an extensive consulting practice throughout New York, mentored many other women medical students and doctors, and was an advocate of abolition and women's rights. According to the introduction, the book was intended as a home guide in "matters of delicacy" and was adapted from a series of informal "parlor talks" Gleason gave to girls and women. The text includes chapters on pregnancy, delivery, menstruation, nursing, infant care, "growing girls," intentional and accidental abortion, and more. The various editions of this title are well represented in libraries, but uncommon in the trade. Staining and wear to covers, bit of foxing and toning to pages, wear to corners and spine tips, owner inscription to front endpaper. …