Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1977.5

JOHN H. (JOHN HOOKER) PACKARD (1832-1907) A hand-book of operative surgery. J.B. Lippincott & Co. 1870 First Edition xi, 17-211 p. illus., LIV pl. 25 cm.

John H. Packard, M.D., one of the most prominent American surgeons of the last part of the 19th Century and a pioneer of modern American surgery, was born in Philadelphia in 1832. He practiced surgery in various Philadelphia hospitals and taught surgery, pathology, and anatomy at the medical school. He served as acting assistant surgeon in two Union Army hospitals during the Civil War, including the Satterlee. Among Dr. Packard's numerous publications, two popular surgical textbooks stand out: A Manual of Minor Surgery (1863), adopted by the US Army, and a Handbook of Operative Surgery (1870). Dr. Packard was the chief editor of the first American edition of Holmes System of Surgery published in 1882. As an eminent Philadelphia surgeon, Dr. Packard had used chloroform exclusively until 1864. Like many busy American surgeons outside of Boston, he appreciated the agent's potency, speed of action, and the intense muscular relaxation that it produced. In May 1865, he reported to the Philadelphia College of Physicians that after witnessing several life-threatening or fatal accidents in his own or in his colleagues' practices, he was switching to ether. He had been encouraged to do so by his friend and ether enthusiast, F.D. Lente of Cold Springs, New York. This volume is notable for 54 excellent plates that depict a variety of surgical operations & pathologic conditions. The numerous text figures are primarily concerned with instruments. This work is one of many unaccountably elusive 19th C. American surgical texts. The engravings are striking.

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John Martin M.D. Endowment