Abhandlung uber die Krankheiten der Kinder und uber die physische Erziehung derselben.

Berlin:: [s.n.], 1796., 1796. 19 cm. Small 8vo. xvi, 462 pp. Dedicated to Johann Heinrich Fischer. Original plain paper over boards, later paper spine tag; rubbed. Some offsetting of ink from an ownership inscription. Very good copy. This is a treatise on the diseases of children and their physical education. It contains sixteen chapters. The work treats nutrition, care of the newborn and infant, wet-nursing, breastfeeding, weaning and the foundling hospital. One section details twenty-six health issues or diseases of infants (including sores, limping, bowed legs, teething, redness, coughing, etc.). There are two issues of this book from 1794 and 1796. We have the 1796 issue, which has a longer pagination and wherein the publisher’s name is not given - noting that H.A. Rottmann was publisher of the first issue of 1794. / Abt-Garrison has nothing good to say about this author of St. Gall, Switzerland. ?. . . a vain, disputatious and somewhat superficial writer, who was one of the opponents of the Brunonian theory of disease. . . . He published (1794) as essay on children’s diseases, which in the opinion of contemporary pediatricians, is showy and specious.? (Abt-Garrison, History of Pediatrics, p.79). Seldom have I seen such a poorly valued writer in medical literature. / The Swiss chemist and physician Christoph Girtanner (1760-1800), after studying in Lausanne and Strasbourg, moved to the University of Gottingen, where he studied chemistry, physics and medicine, receiving his doctorate in 1782. He opened a medical practice in St. Gallen. On returning to Gottingen he befriended German physicist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799). This work was first published in 1794 by H. A. Rottmann in Berlin. REFERENCES: Grulee 630; Blake, NLM, p. 176; Waller 3557 (1794 issue with XVI, 432 pp.); Wellcome p. 119 (also 1794). Annotation on front pastedown: L?Art Ancien #667 cat 25. See; Garrison and Morton 5199 (for the author’s work on venereal disease).