Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1091

JOHN FAITHHORN (fl. 1790) Facts and observations on liver complaints and bilious disorders in general. Hickman & Hazzard and Hazzard & Hickman, Petersburg, VA 1820 1st American ed. xiv, 158 pp. 23 cm.

During the first quarter of the nineteenth century there was increased interest in liver function and liver disease. Bichat (see No. 1256 ff.) postulated that the liver did more than secrete bile, Jöns Jacob Berzelius (1770-1848) investigated the composition of bile, a modern description of liver cancer was given, Laennec (see No. 1364 ff.) proposed the term cirrhosis, and Magendie (see No. 1379 ff.) and others demonstrated that the liver received nutrients from the intestines through the portal vein. Faithhorn had served as a surgeon with the East India Company before returning to practice in London. He was familiar with William Saunders' (1743-1817) A treatise on the structure, economy and diseases of the liver (London, 1803), an early English text on liver disorders, and lamented that no work on the liver had been adapted for popular use. Accordingly he wrote this treatise for the laity and first published it at London in 1811. The book was very well received and was already in its fourth English edition when it was published in the United States for the first time.

See Related Record(s): 1256 1364 1379

Cited references: Austin 753; Cushing F19; Wellcome III, p. 6 (2nd London ed., 1815)