Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1269

EDWARD NATHANIEL BANCROFT (1772-1842) An essay on the disease called yellow fever. Cushing & Jewett 1820 526 pp. 21.4 cm.

Bancroft, a native of London, received his bachelor of medicine degree from Cambridge in 1794. He was then appointed as an army physician and for the next eight to ten years served in many parts of the world. While residing in London, he received the doctor of medicine degree from Cambridge in 1804. He was elected physician to London's St. George's Hospital in 1808. His health required a warmer climate so he rejoined the army and moved to Jamaica in 1811. He was serving as deputy inspector general of army hospitals at the time of his death. This was his major work and was first published at London in 1811. In addition its discussions of yellow fever, the book contains Bancroft's observations on febrile contagion, typhus fever, dysentery, and the plague. Much of the material was delivered as the Gulstonian lectures before the College of Physicians in 1806 and 1807. However, the book contains material omitted from the lectures, three chapters on typhus, dysentery, and the plague, as well as eight appendices added "to confirm or illustrate particular positions, contained in the Essay on Yellow Fever. . . ." (Advertisement, p. [xxi]). A series of notes have been added at the end of the book by John Beale Davidge (1768-1829), founder and professor of anatomy at the University of Maryland medical school.

Cited references: Austin 111; Wellcome II, p. 94