A Short History of St. Bartholomew's Hospital 1123-1923
A copy of A Short History of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, 1123 - 1923, Past and Present by Sir D'Arcy Power. (Historian & Surgeon to the Hospital)
Printed for the hospital, the book plate inside the front cover reads "Presented on the Occasion of the Eight Hundredth Anniversary of the Foundation of Bart's Hospital by the Treasurer and Governors of the Hospital. June 1923" This is an original copy presented to all members of staff at the time. It was privately published in 1923 and is a first edition. It contains 201 pages, a colour frontispiece and plans with some 33 pages of plates. It also contains some illustrations in the text. It has its original black cloth boards with the spine being white. Its rough cut pages are printed on heavy vellum paper with most pages embossed with a watermark. Being rough cut some of the pages have become dusty and the edges are showing the signs of some shelf wear from storage over its some 90 years. Presented as used but in good condition for its age. A good tightly bound copy. The preface reads “This book was written on the occasion of the celebration of the eight hundredth anniversary of the foundation of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. The short history of the Hospital is told, as far as possible in the language of the original records." Original copies are rare and whilst copies are available the majority being offered are facsimiles and print on demand copies.
Interesting reading for anyone keen on historic architectural buildings in London or for anyone related to or trained at the hospital. Date : 1923 (1st edition)
Dimensions : 9¼” x 7½” x 1¼” (235mm x 191mm x 32mm) More detailed images are shown on the right.
STOCK # NMC-BO14/001 Price (GBP) - £ 75.00 (Price does not include postage, which is at cost) |
A Short History of St. Bartholomew's Hospital 1123-1923
Presentation book plate inside front cover.
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Antique Medical Instruments by Elisabeth Bennion (2nd Edition).
Elisabeth Bennion’s book of Antique Medical Instruments, this is a 2nd edition printing from 1986 and all editions are now out of print. The authoritative book on the subject which provides a helpful reference book for collecting & researching the development of instruments.
Containing 355 pages with 16 colour plates & over 370 black & white photographs and illustrations which includes a directory of instrument makers. The book has green boards is 10” (254mm) x 9” (229mm) x 1½” (38mm) thick with an untorn dust jacket. An excellent copy with no annotations or creasing. The book is regarded as one of the respected volumes on this subject and would sit nicely on a bookshelf, noting just a slightly sun bleached spine on the dust jacket but in otherwise in excellent condition. Date : 1986 - ISBN 0 856670529
Dimensions : 254mm x 229mm x 38mm More detailed images are shown on the right.
STOCK # NMC-BOSU13/001 Price (GBP) - £ 60.00 (Price does not include postage, which is at cost) |
Antique Medical Instruments by Elisabeth Bennion (2nd Edition).
Inside of dust jacket
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The Gold-Headed Cane by William Macmichael (1968 Royal College of Physicians Facsimile Copy)
Published in 1827, the Gold-Headed Cane is the 'autobiography' of the cane owned by five eminent physicians beginning with John Radcliffe (1652-1714). It presents a fascinating record of society and the practice of medicine in the eighteenth century. This facsimile edition of the author's original annotated copy was published in 1968 in association with the 450th anniversary of the foundation of the Royal College of Physicians. With a preface by Sir Max Rosenheim, (Then president of the RCP) and introductory notes by Thomas Hunt (Vice president of the RCP and the great-grandson of the author)
This copy of the original author's 1827 text is illustrated & interleaved with his own amendments and additions. With a colour frontis portrait and black and white illustrations, it is presented with red and gilt covers and gold embossed spine. It has gold leaf to the end papers and is offered with no shelf wear and is in perfect unread condition. Radcliffe began the tradition of the cane and passed it on in 1714 to Richard Mead (1673-1754) he was an illustrious practitioner and among his patients were Sir Isaac Newton, who he treated for bladder stone in 1726. He was the physician to King George II and other members of the royal family. Subsequently the cane was passed to Anthony Askew (1722-1774) in 1754; William Pitcairn (1711-1791) had the cane from 1774 onwards and finally in 1791 it passed to Matthew Baillie (1761-1823). The final recipient Dr. Baillie died in 1823 and two years later his widow donated the cane to the Royal College of Physicians in London where it has remained until this day. The cane has long been a symbol in medicine. The original cane was carried by John Radcliffe and passed down through the hands of Mead, Askew, Pitcairn and Baillie. Each physician at the end of his career would identify a colleague of worth and bequeath the cane to him. In the 16th -18th Century the cane was the symbol of the physician much as the white coat has been recently. A doctor’s cane was often elaborate with heads of gold, silver or ivory, it was sometimes hollow & perforated and the owner would fill the inside with powders thought to prevent disease or fumigate the air. On rounds as they entered the room, the physician would bang the cane on the ground to aerosolize the powders within. They usually held aromatic substances such as rosemary or camphor to help neutralize offensive odours & thought to prevent infection. A favourite preparation was known as "vinegar of the four thieves" or ”Marseilles Vinegar” (This story is that four thieves who robbed a plague stricken Marseilles patient confessed that they took this aromatic vinegar to prevent catching the disease.) William MacMichael (1784-1839) the author writes ‘A short time before the opening of the New College of Physicians, Mrs Baillie presented to that learned body a Gold-Headed Cane, which had been successively carried by Drs Radcliffe, Mead, Askew, Pitcairn and her own lamented husband.'
‘The Gold-Headed Cane recognises a physician who symbolised the pursuit of the highest standards of excellence and integrity. The existence of such an honour should encourage them to cultivate essentials of character to secure the respect and good will of colleagues and the profession’. The original Gold-Headed Cane was carried by the personally elected physician from 1689 until 1823. Each owner of the cane specifically chose a successor considered to be worthy at that time. Radcliffe took care of King William III for some 13 years, and is remembered not only as the originator of the cane tradition, but in the name of the both John Radcliffe Infirmary and the Radcliffe Observatory in Oxford. Whilst he treated King William III for Asthma with success, he could not cure the fatal small pox of Queen Mary. Radcliffe explained the medical failure with the excuse still used to this day, 'I have been called too late.' Date : 1968 (Royal College of Physicians 450th Anniversary Commission FACSIMILE COPY)
Dimensions : 235mm x 150mm x 28mm More detailed images are shown on the right.
STOCK # NMC-BOME13/003 Price (GBP) - £ 45.00 (Price does not include postage, which is at cost) |
The Gold-Headed Cane by William Macmichael (1968 Royal College of Physicians Facsimile Copy)
BMJ Book Review - Medical History Vol 13, Issue 02 of April 1969, pp 203
The Gold Headed Cane in the Royal College of Physicians in London.
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The Life and Work of Astley Cooper by R C Brock.
An author’s presentation
copy of The Life and Work of Astley Cooper by Russell Claude Brock. 176 pages
with 15 B/W plates presented in excellent condition with original dark blue cloth
boards noting a small mark on the back. It does not have a duskjacket. This particular
copy is a unique edition to a collection. Firstly written by the eminent Lord
Brock (Later Baron Brock of Wimbledon and himself recognised as an Astley
Cooper Student of Guy’s Hospital) about the life and times of an former important
medical figure but thirdly dedicated by the author to another renowned surgeon
who has amongst his accolades had the honour of operating on King George VI in
1949.
This first edition states in the preface by Brock that the book was originally written in 1941 but not published until 1953, (probably due to wartime restrictions.) It is dedicated by the author to Sir James Learmonth and dated June 1953. (See photo) Sir James Rögnvald Learmonth was a leading vascular surgeon and Professor of Surgery at the University of Edinburgh from 1939 until his retirement in 1956. Presented in immaculate condition the book covers the life of Sir Astley Paston Cooper regarded as a leader of modern medicine and anatomy with both surgical expertise and insight into diagnosis, having many anatomical structures and diseases which have become eponymous with his name. Background information on these people is provided below and supports the importance of this book.
Sir Astley
Paston Cooper
Born 23rd August 1768 – Died 12th February 1841 Astley Cooper was an English surgeon and anatomist, who made historical contributions to vascular surgery, the anatomy and pathology of the mammary glands and testicles and the surgery of hernia. He was born at Brooke Hall in Norfolk, at the age of sixteen he was sent to London and placed under Henry Cline (1750–1827), surgeon to St Thomas' Hospital. He devoted himself to the study of anatomy and had the privilege of attending the lectures of John Hunter. In 1789 he was appointed demonstrator of anatomy at St Thomas' Hospital where in 1791 he became joint lecturer with Cline in anatomy & surgery and in 1800 he was appointed surgeon to Guy's Hospital on the death of his uncle William Cooper. In 1805 he took an active part in forming the Medical & Chirurgical Society of London, between 1804- 1807 he brought out his works on hernia which added to his reputation. (1813 saw his annual income rose to £21,000 which is about £1M in 2012 terms) In the same year he was appointed professor to the Royal College of Surgeons where he was popular as a lecturer. In 1817 he performed his famous operation of tying the abdominal aorta for aneurism and in 1820 he removed an infected sebaceous cyst from the head of George IV. about six months later receiving a baronetcy. Sir Astley Cooper was subsequently appointed sergeant surgeon to George IV, William IV and Queen Victoria. He served as president of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1827 and again in 1836, and was elected vice-president of the Royal Society in 1830; he also counted the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel amongst his patients. His greatest contribution has probably been in the field of vascular surgery, mainly on cerebral circulation. He was the first to demonstrate the effects of ligation of the carotid arteries and proposed treatment of aneurysms by ligation of the vessel. In 1805 he published his attempt to tie the common carotid artery for treating an aneurysm, whilst in 1808 he tried the same with the external iliac artery for a femoral aneurysm. He described many new anatomical structures, many of which were named after him such as: Cooper's fascia, a covering of the spermatic cord. Cooper's pubic ligament, the superior pubic ligament. Cooper's ligaments, the suspensory ligaments of the breasts. He also described a number of new diseases, which likewise became eponymous: Cooper's testis (neuralgia of the testicles) Cooper's disease (benign cysts of the breast) Cooper's hernia Cooper's neuralgia (neuralgia of the breast) His major published works were: Anatomy and Surgical Treatment of Hernia (1804–1807); Dislocations and Fractures (1822); Lectures on Surgery (1824–1827); Illustrations of Diseases of the Breast (1829); Anatomy of the Thymus Gland (1832); Anatomy of the Breast (1840). He died in 1841 and is interred in the crypt of the Chapel of Thomas Guy, St Thomas Street opposite Guy’s Hospital. A statute of him is in St Paul’s Cathedral by Edward H Baily RA FRS (Famous for his statute of Nelson on Nelson’s Column). Whilst Cooper lived in London he also resided at Gadebridge House in Hemel Hempstead. Due to his reluctance to accept train travel, his influence and lobbying ensured that the London to Birmingham railway line was constructed to the south of the town instead of through it as he did not want the “noise & congestion” This is why the residents of Hemel Hempstead have no railway station, instead having to use the one built 2 miles south at Boxmoor. Russell
Claude Brock (The Rt. Hon. Lord Brock of Wimbledon)
Life Peer (1965) Kt (1954) MB BS Lond (1927) FRCS (1929) MS (1931) FRCP (1965) Hon FACS (1949) Hon FRACS (1957) Hon LLD Leeds (1965) Hon ScD Cantab (1968) Hon FDS RCS (1969) Born 24th October 1903 - Died 3rd September 1980 Russell Brock was born in London and entered Guy’s Hospital Medical School in 1921 at age 17. He qualified as a doctor in 1927 and soon after qualifying he embarked on a career in surgery and in 1928 became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. He devoted his interests to thoracic & cardiac surgery and in 1929 being awarded a Rockefeller fellowship which enabled him to work under the thoracic surgeon Evarts Graham in St Louis. After his return he obtained the mastership of surgery of London University and became a registrar & tutor at Guy’s Hospital and a research fellow of the Association of Surgeons. In 1935 he was appointed thoracic surgeon to London County Council and in the same year, won the Jacksonian prize for his essay on new growths of the lung. In 1936 Brock was appointed consultant surgeon to both Guy’s and The Brompton Hospital. In 1938 becoming a Hunterian professor and in 1949 he was appointed a member of the council of the Royal College of Surgeons serving as vice-president in 1956 and president from 1963 to 1966. He is regarded as one of the pioneers of modern open heart surgery, his achievements recognised with a knighthood in 1954 and a life peerage in 1965. Among his numerous works are four papers which he himself regarded as worthy to be mentioned in Munk’s Roll: The Anatomy of the Bronchial Tree (1946); The Life and Work of Astley Cooper (1952); Lung Abscess (1952); The Anatomy of Congenital Pulmonary Stenosis (1957). Outside of his professional work he had considerable knowledge of medical history and was responsible for the discovery and restoration of an 18th century operating theatre which was formerly part of the old St.Thomas's Hospital (The Old Operating Theatre Museum & Herb Garrett). Brock died in Guy’s Hospital on 3rd September 1980 Sir
James Rögnvald Learmonth
KCVO (1949) CBE (1945) Hon FRCS (1949) MB ChB Glasgow (1921) ChM (1927) FRCS Edinburgh (1928) Hon FACS (1949) Hon FRACS (1954) Hon LLD Glasgow (1949) Hon LLD St Andrew's (1956) Hon LLD Edinburgh (1965) Hon DSc Sydney (1956) Born 23rd March 1895 – Died 27th September 1967 James Learmonth was born at Kirkcudbrightshire to William Learmonth and Kathleen Macosquin Craig. In April 1913 he entered the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Glasgow. His medical studies were interrupted by WWI in which he saw active service, commissioned to the King's Own Scottish Borderers. He returned to the University in 1918 graduating in 1921. After holding the posts of house physician & house surgeon at the Western Infirmary in Glasgow, he was appointed assistant to Professor Archibald Young. During 1924-1925 he made his first visit to America having been elected to a Rockefeller Fellowship to be spent at the Mayo Clinic. Here he came under the aegis of Dr Alfred W Adson the neurosurgeon, an experience which was to influence his surgical life. Returning to Scotland he obtained his ChM degree in 1927 with a thesis on pathology of spinal tumours and in the following year his FRCSEd. This was succeeded by an invitation from Dr Will Mayo to join the permanent staff of the Mayo Clinic. From 1928-1932 his work was concentrated on his specialty and he was appointed Assoc. Professor of Neurological Surgery in the University of Minnesota. Much of this time was also spent in research, his interest aroused in the role of surgery of the sympathetic nervous system treating peripheral vascular disease. In October 1932 he was appointed to the Regius Chair of Surgery in the University of Aberdeen in succession to Sir John Marnoch. He remained an alumnus of the Mayo Clinic and was gratified some 30 yrs later when in 1964 he received a Mayo Centennial Outstanding Achievement Award. In Aberdeen he still retained his special interest in surgical neurology but his clinical range was widely extended both in teaching and practice. In 1935 he was honorary surgeon to HM The King in Scotland and Vice-President of the Section of Surgery of the British Medical Association, and President of the Section in 1939. In 1939 he succeeded Sir David Wilkie as Professor of Systematic Surgery in the University of Edinburgh. Learmonth and his staff made an important contribution to the care of war wounded individuals by organising a unit at Gogarburn Hospital for the treatment of nerve & vascular injuries and for these services he was appointed CBE in 1945. In 1946 he took over the Regius Chair of Clinical Surgery vacated by Sir John Fraser and was elected President of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland in 1948. In 1949 he was called in to attend King George VI at Buckingham Palace. On 12th March assisted by James Paterson Ross and others he carried out a successful lumbar sympathectomy for the relief of impaired circulation of the King's right leg. He later received the accolade of KCVO at the monarch’s hands. In 1950 he was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur. In 1951 he was appointed a member of the Medical Research Council and also awarded the Lister Medal. His international reputation was attested by his election to Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and of the American College of Surgeons in 1949, The Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, and of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow in 1954. He died on 27 September 1967 at the age of 72 Date : 1953
Dimensions : 230 mm (9⅛”) x 171 mm (6¾”) x 25 mm (1”) More detailed images are shown on the right.
STOCK # NMC-BOSU14/004 Price (GBP) - £ 80.00 (Price does not include postage, which is at cost) |
The Life and Work of Astley Cooper by R C Brock.
Brocks Book Review from BMJ 1953
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Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson - 1892 Autograph.
An autographed note on a handwritten card of Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson dated 1892. Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson (1828-1896) was an eminent British physician, anaesthetist, physiologist, sanitarian and prolific writer on medical history. He was the recipient of the Fothergill Gold Medal awarded by the Medical Society of London in 1854 and also the Astley Cooper Triennial Prize for an essay in physiology.
Being destined by the deathbed wish of his mother for the medical profession he was apprenticed to Henry Hudson the surgeon at Somerby. He entered Anderson's University (University of Strathclyde) in 1847 but an attack of fever interrupted his study and led him to become an assistant first to Thomas Browne of Saffron Walden in Essex and afterwards to Edward Dudley Hudson at Littlethorpe. (He was the elder brother of Henry Hudson.) In 1849 he left Hudson and joined Dr Robert Willis of Barnes, well known as the editor of the works of William Harvey and the librarian of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He graduated in medicine from St Andrews University in 1854 and in 1855 founded the Journal of Health. He originated the concept of ether spray for local abolition of pain in operations and introduced meythelene bichloride as a general anaesthetic. He was a close friend and colleague of John Snow the renowned anaesthetist and on his sudden death he took over the final editing of Snow's draft ‘On Chloroform and Other Anaesthetics’ & supervised its publication in 1858. Ward Richardson remained a committed exponent of Snow's radical views on the microbial cause of infectious disease for the rest of his life. He continued and extended Snow's work on inhalation anaesthesia and brought into clinical practice no less than fourteen anaesthetics of which methylene bichloride is the best known. He invented the double-valved mouthpiece for use in the administration of chloroform and medical items such as the disinfectant hydrogen peroxide and an ether spray for local anaesthesia. He invented some embalming methods and several medical devices. In 1863 he made known the peculiar properties of amyl nitrite, a drug now largely used in the treatment of angina pectoris. One of the most respected physicians of his day and an experimental pharmacologist he was an active participant in some of the most popular reform movements of the 19th century. He was involved in the push for improvements in sanitation & public hygiene and was one of the first to advocate humane treatment of laboratory animals. In 1850 he was admitted a licentiate of the Faculty of Physicians & Surgeons of Glasgow becoming faculty lecturer in 1877 and enrolled as a fellow on 3rd June 1878. In 1854 he was admitted M.A. & M.D. of St. Andrews where he became a member of the university court, assessor of the general council and in 1877 an honorary LL.D. He was a founder and for thirty five times in succession the president of the St. Andrews Medical Association. He was admitted as a member of the Royal College of Physicians of London in 1856 and was elected a fellow in 1865 serving the office of materia medica lecturer in 1866. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1867, and delivered the Croonian lecture in 1873 on The Muscular Irritability after Systemic Death' During 1854 he was appointed as the physician to the Blenheim Street Dispensary and in 1856 to the Royal Infirmary for Diseases of the Chest. He was also physician to the Metropolitan Dispensary, the Marylebone and to the Margaret Street Dispensaries and in 1892 became physician to the London Temperance Hospital. For many years he was physician to the Newspaper Press Fund and the Royal Literary Fund, the committee of which he became a long standing active member. In 1854 Richardson became a lecturer on forensic medicine at the Grosvenor Place School of Medicine where he was afterwards appointed the first lecturer on public hygiene, a post which he resigned in 1857 for the lectureship on physiology. He was dean of the school until 1865 and at about this time was also a lecturer at the College of Dentists. As president of the health section of the Social Science Association, notably he delivered a celebrated address at Brighton in 1875 entitled "Hygeia" in which he told of what a city should be, if public health were advanced in a proper manner. In 1868 Richardson was elected president of the Medical Society of London, and elected as an honorary member of the Philosophical Society of America in 1863 and the Imperial Leopold Carolina Academy of Sciences in 1867. He became a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1877 and knighted in 1893 in recognition of his eminent services to humanitarian causes. Richardson died at 25 Manchester Square on 21 November 1896 and was cremated at Brookwood in Surrey. Richardson was one of the most prolific writers of his generation. He wrote biographies, plays, poems and songs in addition to his scientific work. In 1862 he published 'Asclepiad: Clinical Essays Vol 1' which was intended as a periodical but was poorly received. It was not until 1884 when he published The Asclepiad 2nd series that it received adequate distribution and became a regular quarterly periodical going under the full title of ‘The Asclepiad: A Book of Original Research & Observation in the Science, Art and Literature of Medicine, Preventive and Curative’. It continued to be published through eleven volumes until 1895. In 1854, Richardson was awarded the Fothergillian gold medal by the Medical Society of London for an essay on the "Diseases of the Foetus in Utero". Whilst In 1856, he gained the Astley Cooper triennial prize of 300 guineas for his essay on "The Coagulation of the Blood" He was the originator and editor of the Journal of Public Health and Sanitary Review and contributed many articles both signed and unsigned to The Lancet, The Medical Times & The London Gazette. In his role as a reformer Ward Richardson wrote two books 'Diseases of Modern Life' (1876) and 'National Health' (1890) were he warned about the dangers of poor sanitation, inadequate hygiene & drinking alcohol. Date : 1892
Dimensions : Card dimensions 120mm x 75mm affixed to cream backing card measuring 154mm x 82mm More detailed images are shown on the right.
STOCK # NMC-BWR Autograph Price (GBP) - £ 45.00 (Price does not include postage, which is at cost) |
Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson - 1892 Autograph.
View of autographed card dated 1892
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Heberden Society Medal from 1957
The
Heberden Society medal
awarded to Dr George Kersley in 1957.
The society was formed by six physicians on the staff of the British Red Cross Clinic for Rheumatism and named after the physician William Heberden (1710–1801). Sir William Heberden was born in London, a distinguished physician he worked at Cambridge and practised in London from 1748. He died on 17th May 1801 and is buried at Windsor. Heberden's nodes that develop in the distal interphalangeal joints are a sign of osteoarthritis and named after him. The society founded in 1936 as the scientific and research arm of Rheumatology used funds collected by the Arthritis and Rheumatism Council (ARC) and some 45 years later it was absorbed into the British Society of Rheumatology. The Heberden medal continues to be awarded annually at the BSR meeting, the recipient presenting a plenary lecture to his colleagues. The bronze medal is 2” (51mm diameter) and presented in perfect unmarked condition. This medal was presented to Dr G D Kersley in 1957 when it was still the Heberden Society. George Kersley incidentally was one of the early influential members of the Heberden Society in the late 30’s. Date : 1957
Dimensions : 2" (51mm) diameter More detailed images are shown on the right.
STOCK # NMC-KER MEDAL Price (GBP) - SOLD TO SPAIN (Price does not include postage, which is at cost) |
Heberden Society Medal from 1957
George Durant Kersley (BMJ Obituary 1993)
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