Medicina Nautica. Vols. I & II

London: T. Cadell, Jun. and W. Davies; T. N. Longman & O. Rees and T. Whitewood, 1797-99. First Edition. Hardcover. Good. 2 vols. of 3: viii, 487; x, 475, [4] p. 22 cm. Full tree leather, respined. Ex library with labels from the Medical Society of the County of Kings (presented by the Northern Dispensary of New York City) on front pastedowns, ink stamps and notations at bottoms of title pages. Ink inscriptions across from title pages. Ink notation and marks on front free endpaper of vol. I. Foxing is mainly to endpapers. Occasional stains eg. Vol. II pp. v. & x. Frontispiece missing from both volumes.

Titles continue: "An Essay on the Diseases of Seamen. Vol. I: Comprehending the History of Health in His Majesty's Fleet, under the Command of Richard Earl Howe, Admiral. Vol. II: With An Appendix, Containing Communications on the New Doctrine of Contagion and Yellow Fever, By American Physicians; Transmitted to the Admiralty by Sir John Temple, Bart. His Majesty's Consul-General." Scottish naval doctor Thomas Trotter (1760–1832) was a leading medical reformer in the Royal Navy as well as an ardent critic of the slave trade. Trotter was a champion of vaccinations for naval medical staff and, as the Navy's Physician of the Fleet, he required that all naval surgeons and assistants be inoculated against smallpox. Medicina Nautica provides a detailed examination of the state of naval medicine during the French Revolutionary Wars. Besides smallpox, the work discusses typhus, yellow fever, intoxication, scurvy, diet, and malignant ulcer (possibly necrotising fasciitis or hospital gangrene). The third volume was published in 1803. G&M 2159; Norman 2097.