Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1850

MEDICAL AND SURGICAL REGISTER (1785-1831) The medical & surgical register: consisting chiefly of cases in the New York Hospital. Collins 1818-1820 x, 406 pp., illus., plates. 23.5 cm.

The Medical and surgical register, of which only two parts were issued, is the first volume of case reports published by a United States hospital, and is one of the cornerstones in the history of American medicine, as well as one of the scarcest of medical periodicals. In it, one case report stands out as of great importance--that of Valentine Mott (see also No. 1417) who first tied the innominate artery of a patient with an aneurysm of the right subclavian artery. Although this patient later died because of the excessively diseased condition of the artery, Mott performed, in all, 138 ligations for aneurysm of the great vessels, and his patients almost always recovered. Mott received his M.D. from Columbia in 1806 and studied also in London and Edinburgh. He taught surgery in various American medical schools and carried on a tremendous surgical practice. He enjoyed an international reputation, and it was said by Sir Astley Paston Cooper that "He has performed more of the great operations than any man living, or that ever did live" (Francis R. Packard, History of medicine in the United States. 2 vols. New York, 1931. Vol. I, p. 415). This copy was once owned by Willard Parker (1832-1884), another well-known American surgeon who himself performed many operations on the great vessels. His signature appears several times.

See Related Record(s): 1417

Cited references: Austin 1254; Garrison-Morton 2942; Waller 10130

Gift of John Martin, M.D.