Among the ablest anatomical teachers of his day, Robert Knox (1791 1862) also busied himself with the study of zoology and ethnology. Prepared by his pupil and colleague Henry Lonsdale (1816 76), this 1870 biography explores the scope of Knox's scientific research and the nature of his character. It describes how Knox developed at Edinburgh one of the most significant anatomical schools in Britain, playing a dominant role in expanding the comparative anatomy collection held by the city's Royal College of Surgeons. Despite his eminence and popularity as a lecturer, his reputation was deeply...

Although he was tried for attempted murder and died in Newgate Prison, the natural philosopher and apothecary John Elliot (1747 87) published a number of significant scientific works in the first part of the 1780s, especially with regard to sensory perception. This 1789 second edition of a 1781 work is essentially an alphabetically arranged catalogue of the principal British mineral waters, their properties and uses, along with those 'most celebrated ones which the English valetudinarian may have occasion to visit on the continent'. In his introduction, Elliot classes the waters according to...

Reissued here together are two medical works, both published in 1835, by John Grant Malcolmson (1803 44), a British surgeon based in India. His extended essays explore the symptoms, diagnosis and treatment of beriberi and rheumatism, conditions which were widespread in Asia at the time. Also describing the contrasting effects that the illnesses had on India's native population and on European colonials, Malcolmson draws on his first-hand experience to speculate on the underlying causes. His analysis of beriberi, forming the larger of the two components here, discusses a disease which had...

The pharmacist Jacob Bell (1810 59) spent much of his career working to raise the standards and reputation of his profession. A founder in 1841 of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, he sought to improve scientific education for practitioners as well as protect the profession through legislation. Although he served briefly in Parliament, Bell exerted his greatest influence through editing the Pharmaceutical Journal. An extended piece that he produced for the journal in 1842 forms the first part of the present work. He traces the development of pharmaceutical practice and legislation...

Bath physician Joseph Hume Spry (c.1779 1859) was concerned that the popular practice of 'taking the waters' had fallen out of favour. In 1822 he produced this treatise extolling the healing properties of Bath's waters, supported by his own case notes and the writings of other physicians. He claimed that manifold afflictions, ranging from gout to indigestion, could be eased by drinking or bathing in these mineral-rich waters. In addition to offering careful instructions for treating each ailment, Spry's book includes a chapter on Bath's history, detailed descriptions and a sketch of the Roman...

The physician and author John Ayrton Paris (1785 1856), several of whose other medical and popular works have been reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection, published the first edition of his Pharmacologia in 1812. It was immediately successful, and went into eight further editions until 1843. The third edition, of 1820, has been reissued in this series. This book, published in 1825, was intended as a companion volume, providing a 'grammar' of chemistry for the medical student. After an imaginary dialogue on the importance of chemistry, between a provincial physician and 'the author', to...

The French pharmacist Nicolas Jean-Baptiste Gaston Guibourt (1790 1867) first published this work in two volumes in 1820. It provided methodical descriptions of mineral, plant and animal substances. In the following years, Guibourt became a member of the Academie nationale de medicine and a professor at the Ecole de pharmacie in Paris. Pharmaceutical knowledge also progressed considerably as new methods and classifications emerged. For this revised and enlarged four-volume fourth edition, published between 1849 and 1851, Guibourt followed the principles of modern scientific classification....

The surgeon and anatomist John Hunter (1728 93) left a famous legacy in the Hunterian Museum of medical specimens now in the Royal College of Surgeons, and in this collection of his writings, edited by James Palmer, with a biography by Drewry Ottley, published between 1835 and 1837. The first four volumes are of text, and the larger Volume 5 contains plates. Hunter had begun his career as a demonstrator in the anatomy classes of his brother William, before qualifying as a surgeon. He regarded surgery as evidence of failure - the mutilation of a patient who could not be cured by other means -...

The surgeon and anatomist John Hunter (1728 93) left a famous legacy in the Hunterian Museum of medical specimens now in the Royal College of Surgeons, and in this collection of his writings, edited by James Palmer, with a biography by Drewry Ottley, published between 1835 and 1837. The first four volumes are of text, and the larger Volume 5 contains plates. Hunter had begun his career as a demonstrator in the anatomy classes of his brother William, before qualifying as a surgeon. He regarded surgery as evidence of failure - the mutilation of a patient who could not be cured by other means -...