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This volume contains two medical texts important to understanding the plague and other contagions. Each is valuable in its own right, but an early owner, apparently in 1751, chose to have them bound together. They are in a contemporary 18th century full leather binding, still in very good condition, with just some splitting beginning at the upper spine corners. Gilt ruling on front and back covers, and five raised bands on the spine with gilt title on red background on the spine. Endpapers browning, but the body of the text remains in particularly good condition, with no significant issues. Early owner's initials "J. 1751 L." and "J. Langham" in ink on the title page of the first book. 1. A Short Discourse Concerning Pestilential Contagion and the Methods To Be Used to Prevent It, by Richard Mead, M.D. Fellow of the College of Physicians and of the Royal Society. London, Printed for Sam. Buckley in Amen-Corner, and Ralph Smith at the Royal-Exchange, 1720. 59 pp. This first edition appears to be quite scarce, with no other copies currently found on the Internet. From Pubmed: An epidemic of plague in Marseilles in 1720 and the fear that it would spread to England led to the passing of a new quarantine act. First, however, the government sought medical advice from Dr. Richard Mead (1673-1754), which took the form of A Short Discourse Concerning Pestilential Contagion, and the Methods to Be Used to Prevent It. This tract was a contribution to the contagion concept of disease at a time when it had not yet become part of the medical mainstream as an explanation for certain epidemic diseases. Critical works appeared almost immediately attacking Mead's ideas. The Short Discourse went through nine editions, the last in 1744. In the last two editions there are further elaborations of his earlier views and references to Newton's Optics and the ether theory. Some of Mead's practical recommendations for dealing with the plague, should it enter the country, were relatively new. References to his plague tract appeared in a number of medical and nonmedical works well beyond his lifetime. 2. Loimologia: or, an Historical Account of the Plague in London in 1665, with Precautionary Directions Against the Like Contagions, by Nathaniel Hodges, M. D., London, Printed for E. Bell and J. Osborn, 1720. 288 pp. This is the first English edition, translated from the original Latin edition by Dr. John Quincy. This copy lacks the Table of the Funerals in the Several Parishes within the Bills of Mortality of the City of London for the Year 1665, but a facsimile copy of the table is included. (Even the Google Books copy, held by the British Museum, also lacks the table.) Nathaniel Hodges M.D. (1629â "1688) was an English physician, known for his work during the Great Plague of London and his written account of it in this book. In 1671, he completed an account of the plague, which was published in 1672 as Loimologia, sive Pestis nuperæ apud Populum Londinensem grassantis Narratio Historica. Hodges was an observer both of symptoms and the results of treatment. Bezoar, unicorn's horn, and serpentary as a diaphoretic, and of hartshorn as a cardiac stimulant. He described pericarditis in a case of plague. .
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