Notices sur la chirurgie des enfants. by GUERSANT, Paul Louis Benoit (1800-1869) - 1864

Paris:: P. Asselin, Successeur de Bechet Jeune et Labe, 1864-67., 1864. 22 cm. viii, 398 pp. Half-title, 6 figures [4 are numbered, 2 others not numbered, see pp. 138, 145], index. Contemporary quarter gilt-stamped calf, marbled boards; rubbed, rear joint with minor kozo repair, but a very good copy. First edition, in book form, of first modern textbook of paediatric surgery. 'In 1844, Paul Guersant (1800-1869) instigated the first pediatric surgical unit at the Hopital des Enfants-Malades, and in the same year he published the first textbook of pediatric surgery. The book, Notices sur la Chirurgie des Enfants,. . . This remarkable book covers the full range of pediatric surgery from children 'mutilated by the wheels of machinery or crushed on the streets' to all the external birth defects and tumors. Guersant noted the ability of fractured bones to heal and mold, as well as the delayed healing in children with rickets or tuberculosis. He performed over a thousand tonsillectomies with the knife, scissors or tonsiltome and stopped bleeding with a white-hot iron or perchlorate of iron. . . He treated 140 patients under 20 years of age with bladder stones, of whome 21 died. He drained hydroceles with the tip of a lancet and injected alcohol at 36 degrees centigrade. The alcohol was removed after three to four minutes and the scrotum was bandaged. . .' - John G. Raffensperger, Children's Surgery: A Worldwide History, (2012), p. 98. 'His successor, Guersant, wrote the first modern textbook of paediatric surgery (1861) entitled 'Notices sur la chirurgie des enfants', which was translated three years later into English and became important for Germany too.' - Robert Carachi, Daniel Greer Young, Cenk Buyukunal, A History of Surgical Paediatrics, 2009. p.174. Note: '1861' must be an error as this is a first edition from 1864-7, though it is an oddly dated title-page. Guersant was considered a brilliant surgeon, taking work at the l'Hopital des Enfants Malades, Paris. REFERENCES: Grulee 1091; August Hirsch; Franz Hubotter, Biographisches Lexikon der hervorragenden Arzte aller Zeiten und Volker, II, 898. See: P. P. Rickham, Historical Aspects of Pediatric Surgery, 2012. [FFrye C188]