SYDENHAM, Thomas.

London: M.C. for Walter Kettilby, .1680

Small 8vo, 1 leaf, pp. 129, 1 leaf (errata); without the initial blank. Title within rules. 19th century presentation inscription at top of p.1. Library stamp at foot of title recto and verso, and on p.101; margins slightly browned and one or two headlines just shaved, otherwise a very good copy. Mottled calf antique.

FIRST EDITION of Sydenham’s second book, taking the form of two letters, the first on the epidemic diseases of 1675 to 1680, the second on venereal disease. “His chief contributions to medicine were: first, his observations on the epidemic diseases of successive years, which have been the model of many similar researches... ” (DNB). Sydenham published only five works in his lifetime, and one posthumously, of which no copy is known. First editions of his books are seldom seen on the market. Wing S6310. For a further study of Sydenham’s theory of epidemics, see Major Greenwood in Proc. Roy. Soc. Med., vol.XII, 55–76, 1919.

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