Is there anything more useless than out of date medical books? Maybe – how about
books on out of date political behavior. Hah! Notice that I used the American spelling, dropping the familiar “u”.
I often come across such medical tomes, and I don’t hesitate. They are interesting, for their historical/research value, and often reflect on society or culture at the time of publication. I buy them and customers sometimes buy them from Raven & Gryphon Fine Books.
Here are four examples, there are more. The first two are research focused and the next two are more about practical, state-of-the-art procedures in dealing with disease, in this case tuberculosis, or consumption, an out of date term used for the dreadful scourge.
Following the photos and the title, I have inserted the description of the book that I have used when posting it onto Abebooks.
I must apologize now for the photos used on the Consumption book. Rather than have pictures of the required well-aired required recovery rooms, buildings and such, I was fascinated with the local advertisements from small town Nova Scotia, found throughout the book.
Conservative in their publicity, the publishers have no hesitation in describing this volume as the most up-to-date and authoritative account on the blood groups in existence. The authors present a comprehensive account of the blood groups, with emphasis upon the advances made during the past decade on the Rh factor and on the more recently discovered groups. Special reference is made to the manner of the inheritance of blood groups, to their importance in the science of human genetics, and to the frequencies of the various groups. These frequencies are in the main confined to European races: data of a wider ethnological and zoological nature will be the subject of a further monograph in this haematological series. Ruth Ann Sanger FRS (1918 – 2001) was an Australian immunogeneticist, haematologist and serologist. She was known for her work on human red cell antigens and for the genetic mapping of the human X chromosome. She was Director of the Medical Research Council Blood Group Unit, of the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine from 1973 to 1983. She worked closely with Robert Russell Race from the 1940s, and they married in 1956. They co-authored many papers after 1948, and co-wrote six editions of a leading work on blood groups, Blood Groups in Man, which helped make blood transfusions safer. The book was known as "Race and Sanger", which were published between 1950 and 1975.
An interesting provenance – the Dalhousie University Medical Library, with typical library markings and withdrawal card in the back of the book. Dr. Dorrance, in addition to being an internationally known surgeon, was also the chairman of the board of the Campbell Soup Co., where two of his brothers had been former presidents. He had been one of the first plastic surgeons, beginning such work during World War I. In addition to having the Dalhousie University Medical Library bookplate inside the front cover, there is also the bookseller’s label of H.K. Lewis & Co. Ltd., Medical &Scientific Booksellers, New and Second Hand, 136 Gower St., London, W.C.1. The incredible bibliography is 88 pages long with dozens of entries per page. What an incredible reference source for researchers. An extremely rare and cornerstone study on the topic.
From the introduction: The statistics of tuberculosis, recited in this volume, tell us that well-nigh 1,000,000 cases of active tuberculosis exist in the United States at the present time and that approximately 100,000 deaths from tuberculosis will occur in this country with the current year. These fateful figures admonish us of the need of such a book as this. The care of these sick and numerously dying people is a matter not merely of professional but of public concern.
From chapter 2 – Prevalence and Importance of Tuberculosis – “Tuberculosis causes more deaths than any other disease that afflicts the human race. It kills more people than war, famine, or any of the raging plagues or pestilences that startle our imaginations by their fearful ravages…we find the number of deaths from tuberculosis in these three counties during the preceding year to have been, in Pictou, 65; Antigonish, 38; Guysborough, 27; in all, 140.” While much of the book’s content is generic to all there is a great deal of local content. The book is well illustrated but what is quite fascinating are the large number of advertisements from local organizations, including a Physician’s Directory for the three counties.