Complete Record

JOHN CHEYNE (1777-1836) Essays on the diseases of children : with cases and dissections Printed by and for Mundell & Son 1801-1802 1st Volume 1: 72 pp., 5 hand-colored plates; Volume 2: 80 pp., 2 hand-colored plates. 26 cm

These are the first editions of Cheyne’s earliest two “essays” on diseases of children, the first on croup and the second on bowel disorders. Following a thesis on rickets, Cheyne turned to the study of pathology, with particular attention to the diseases of children, in which field he was an early British pioneer. He was one of the first to assign a central place to pathology in the investigation of pediatric topics. Cheyne’s Essays (a third, on hydrocephalus, appeared in 1808) have been described as “scholarly performances replete with postmortem findings” (Abt-Garrison, History of pediatrics, 84). Six of the plates in this work were drawn by Cheyne’s friend Charles Bell, the eminent anatomist whose fame rests in part on his artistic talents. Cheyne was one of the founders of the Dublin school of medicine and “was celebrated for introducing in Ireland the method of regarding diseases from the pathological point of view rather than as groups of symptoms” (Comrie, History of Scottish medicine, 2:733).

Cited references: Waller 1952; Wellcome II (pg. 339)

John Martin M.D. Endowment