Inscribed by Rush to Dr. Philip Syng Physick. "Dr. Physick from his friend the Editor."
From Catalog II
George Cleghorn (1716-1789) spent eleven years on Minorca in British Army service, keeping meticulous records of the connection between climate, weather, and disease -- the foundational work of medical geography that Rush would draw on when arguing that yellow fever arose from Philadelphia's local miasmatic conditions. This presentation copy, inscribed by Cleghorn, documents the Edinburgh intellectual community through which Rush moved. The clinical habits this book modeled -- environmental correlation, meteorological record-keeping -- are directly visible in the yellow fever literature of the 1790s.
Accession
BR-2023.022
Date
ca. 1750s -- Inscribed presentation copy
Author / maker
Cleghorn, George, M.D.
Condition
12mvo (175 x 106 mm). Contemporary sheep, modern cloth clamshell box. Heavily rubbed, joints cracked, front free endpaper loose.
References
FOX: 1809-3, AUSTIN 481, SHAW AND SHOEMAKER 17228 (MICROTEXT)
Notes
Physick began as a protegee of Rush, staying by Rush's side in Philadelphia in 1793 in order to combat the yellow fever epidemic. In 1795 he performed the first human blood transfusion, although this was not publicized at the time. He was elected the first professor of Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania (and the first in the United States), earning him the moniker "Father of American Surgery." An important association of early American medicine.
Cite this object as“Diseases of Minorca.” The Soiferman Collection, BR-2023.022, Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. EIS LIBRIS, https://eislibris.com/objects/diseases-of-minorca (accessed [date]).
