Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1397

WILLIAM MACMICHAEL (1784-1839) The gold-headed cane. J. Murray 1827 [7] 179 pp., illus., ports. Copy 1: 20 cm.; Copy 2: 20 cm.

A gold-headed cane was once a conspicuous part of the physician's adornment, and the particular gold-headed cane of this work was owned by Dr. John Radcliffe (1650-1714), an irascible London physician, who passed it on to a younger contemporary. The custom of passing on the cane continued through a series of five physicians, ending with Matthew Baillie (see No. 1176 ff.), whose widow presented it to the Royal College of Physicians in 1823. The originally anonymous book is written as an "autobiography" of the cane and, in a series of charming essays, tells the story--actually biographies--of its several owners. Along the way there is much information concerning the state of medicine and its practice in England during the eighteenth century.

See Related Record(s): 1176

Cited references: Cushing M48; Garrison-Morton 6709; Osler 6717; Waller 16091

Gift of John Martin, M.D.