1848. Single sheet, 315 x 217mm; with engraved arms at head, partially completed in neat manuscript in brown ink; with evidence of seals, some light soiling along horizontal fold, with some minor furling to extremities; a good example. A standard maritime ‘Bill of Health’, issued to guarantee the health of the ship and its crew, and granting onward passage from Uruguay to Brazil for the Brig Frederica. ‘I Martin Tupper Hood, Her Britannic Majesty’s Acting Consul General to the Oriental Republic of the Uruguay, do hereby certify to all quarantine Officers and others whom it doth or may concern, that by the Mercy of God this City, its Harbour and Vicinity, are entirely exempt from every degree of Plague or other contagious disorder’. The document has been signed by the Vice Consul, a slightly illegible signature but possibly Vernon Hunt.
As such it provides a fascinating insight into cross-boundary maintenance of public health in the first half of the 19th century, especially in the light of the recent cholera pandemics. Major efforts were being made to restrict the spread of disease, with highly organized measures being put in to practice and laws written to enforce these. Ships and sailors, with their easy mobility, were considered chief contributors to the international spread of disease, thus becoming prime culprits and easy scapegoats. The ‘Bills of Health’ nullified this threat. Issued in various places in their own individual formats, they nevertheless followed a standard pattern, were official printed forms, and were signed and dated by specific ‘qualified’ individuals. They acted, therefore, as guarantees: without them the ship could not sail or be allowed to dock: with them the citizens of port towns could feel that their good health was secure.

[1838.]. 8vo, pp. [iv], 102; with four large folding lithograph plates; lightly foxed and browned throughout due to paper quality, with some further occasional minor soiling, minor ink staining on verso of first plate, with other three plates a little creased and with evidence of previous folds; bound in contemporary marbled boards, neatly rebacked and recornered in calf, spine ruled and lettered in ink, with some minor abrasions to surfaces; with presentation inscription from the author to Mr. Fildes at the tail of the dedication leaf; a good copy. Uncommon first edition of this detailed work, based very much on first hand experience, on the design and management of boilers, and the work of the Manchester engineer Robert Armstrong. The work bears testament, therefore, to the many technical and mechanical advances which emanated from the town, thanks to the rapid growth of the cotton industry which had transformed Manchester from being a small market town with a popular of 10,000 at the turn of the century, to becoming Britain’s second city by the 1840s, and home to nearly 400,000.
Indeed Armstrong dedicates his work to the ‘Cotton Manufacturers and other Proprietors of Steam engines, in Manchester and its vicinity, who have afforded him many opportunities of obtaining a variety of information on practical details’. This first edition is printed on rather cheap paper, the four large folding plates containing somewhat crude illustrations done reproduced from his original drawings in lithograph, a fact which Armstrong rather ruefully acknowledges in his concluding remarks, his publisher clearly having had little faith in its sale and suggesting only a limited initial print run ‘to meet a merely local sale’. Whilst he prides himself upon his boiler-making workmanship, his limited budget had not allowed him to use skilled engravers and printers, when it came to his bookmaking. An interesting commentary, perhaps, upon how lithography was considered to be a less skilled profession.
The poor design and management of boilers was frequently the Achilles heel of the steam engine, preventing their efficient and economic running. Armstrong focuses in particular upon boilers for mill engines, though there is a small section describing locomotive boilers. He deals with high and low pressure boilers, form and proportions, the capacity of the steam chamber and what happens when the boiler is too small, together with rules for alteration and improvement. There is advice on re-setting boilers in order to save fuel, methods of estimating power, the best form of fire-grate, boiler cleansing machinery and ways to get rid of scale and boiler balls, which clogged up pipes and flues, and on the cause and prevention of explosions. Various types of boiler, such as the Boulton and Watt boiler or Durham and Cornish boilers are referred to and some leading contemporary books, such as Tredgold and Pambour, are cited. A practical and thorough work.

-1870s.]. 8vo, carte de visite photograph album, ff. 15 leaves of thick card, with images on both recto and verso, and comprising a lithograph introductory text within a garland border, followed by 28 numbered albumen print photographs of comical drawings, also within matching garland borders, each with lithographed text mounted below, the ‘windows for each surrounded by chromolithograph triple gilt ruled border; somewhat dust-soiled throughout with some marginal staining, first window previously torn but now repaired, the photographs all a little faded, more so towards the end, top corners of each card clipped for easier insertion into windows, small tear at tail of ff. 2, with further light wear and occasional minor tears to each, and cards a little awkward to remove; bound within the original elaborate blindstamped red morocco album, though now considerably darkened appearing almost brown, upper cover lettered in gilt 'The Club Adventures of Alderman Akeinside', sympathetically newly rebacked to style with new endpapers and later morocco label, spine with raised bands, all edges gilt and with inner gilt dentelles, with remains of brass clasps; a most unusual and appealing ephemeral item. A wonderful and somewhat curious piece of mid to late Victoriana, and seemingly a rare production. We have so far been unable to find any record of ‘B & Co. London (Wholesale), and have only found two copies held by Institutions, and none in the UK.
Presented as a carte de visite photograph album, the work contains 29 ‘cartes’, the first of which is a lithograph introductory text, followed by 28 numbered albumen print photographs of comical drawings illustrating the gluttonous night-out of Alderman Akeinside at his club, his inebriated return home, and his final consultation with Dr. Sloe and Mrs. Akeinside. Though slightly hard to remove from their ‘windows’ (each framed by a gilt ruled border), each card has the imprint 'Published by B. & Co. London (Wholesale)', within a circle on the verso, though undated. Harvard hold what is presumably the original manuscript version, and which they date to 1850, and which contains ‘pen, pencil and watercolour’ drawings, each signed ‘GB’ or ‘GBR’. Toronto holds a copy of the present later version including the albumen carte-de-visite prints, most probably photographs of the original album held at the Houghton, and which they date to 1860.
From the Introduction: 'August ye 12th. 18-- Dine at the Club tomorrow ? Of course I shall, whoever heard of such a thing ? Mrs. A. wont eat turtle, never did: I dont like Ice: because I once fell into the Serpentine: no wonder she dont know the difference between Turtle and boiled Goose!! Some people dont know the difference between a sheeps head and a Carrot!'.

1930. Single folded sheet, large 4to, pp. [4]; music score on pp. 2-3, with vertical column of advertisement down central fold; paper somewhat browned and soiled; advertisement on p. [4]; with photographic depiction of the aviator with her plane on upper cover, front lower corner folded over and with a tiny nick, small tear at the top edge without loss, very faint retailer’s stamp on the front cover. An appealing ephemeral item: an arrangement ‘for “Banjulele” Banjo and Ukele’ of a song written by Gilbert and Nicholls commemorating the ‘daring deeds’ of Amy Johnson (1903-1941).
Born in Kingston upon Hull, Johnson graduated from Sheffield University with a degree in Economics, before moving to London where she trained at the London Aeroplane Club and obtained her pilot’s licence in 1929. The following year she undertook the first woman’s solo flight from England to Australia in the second-hand de Havilland ‘Gypsy Moth’ that she bought with funds from her father and Lord Wakefield. She named it ‘Jason’ after the trademark of her father’s business, and the celebrated plane is featured prominently on the front cover of this song sheet. She flew from Croydon Airport on May 5th., and arrived at Darwin, Northern Territory on May 24th. The aeroplane is now in the Science Museum.
Whilst celebrating her considerable achievements, the song can by no means be considered to be a classic of lyricism and musicality, and the verses jar somewhat with modern sensibilities. ‘You deserve a lot of credit for your daring deeds... You are just the kind of person that the country needs... Yesterday you were a non-entity, Now your name will go down to posterity, Amy, wonderful Amy, how can you blame me for loving you?’
In 1940 Amy Johnson joined the Air Transport Auxiliary and in January 1941, in poor weather conditions, had to bail out whilst on a ferrying mission, over the Thames. Her parachute was spotted by the ferry HMS Haslemere, whose commander, Walter Fletcher, dived in to rescue her but both died and Amy Johnson’s body was never recovered. In 1999, a member of an anti-aircraft crew claimed that they had shot down the plane as Johnson had failed to give the correct identification code. To further compound the enigma, there have been claims that a third, unidentified, person died in the accident. He had been a passenger on the plane but as the reason for the flight is still covered by the secrecy laws, this remains unverified.

1810. Large letterpress broadside, 785 x 535mm, printed on two single sheets of laid paper and then neatly adhered together horizontally in the centre, text in three columns, with two vertical geometric woodcut dividing borders, some light foxing and soiling, evidence of previous horizontal and vertical folds, some creasing, uncut with some minor edgewear, and evidence of previous later mount on verso at tail, and with contemporary title in brown ink ‘remedie secrets’ on verso; a lovely example. A scarce survivor and fine example of this Imperial decree issued to regulate secret remedies in France, of importance in the history of proprietary remedies. This large letterpress broadside, printed in three columns on two on two sheets and joined together, has been printed in Nîmes in the Gard department of Southern France.
Matthew Ramsey, in his essay ‘Property Rights and the right to health: The regulation of Secret Remedies in France, 1789-1815’ (Chapter five of ‘Medical Fringe and Medical Orthodoxy’ edited by W Bynum and Roy Porter, Routledge, 2019) provides a detailed and fascinating account of the various attempts to regulate Secret Remedies, a contentious issue which attempted to balance, often rather precariously, the Enlightenment ideals of the right to property with the right to health. ‘The complexities of the relationship between fringe and orthodox medicine in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are nowhere more apparent than in the history of proprietary medicines, or remèdes secrets, as they were known in France. Such remedies were neither officinal (standard preparations from the pharmacopoeia that the apothecaries kept in stock) nor magistral (compounded according to a physician’s prescription for a particular case). As the French term indicates, their formula was a trade secret; and as the English term suggests, this secret was the property of the inventor or other owner who exploited it commercially’. Such preparations had flourished and abounded for centuries, though had long fallen foul of physicians and apothecaries, who opposed quack doctors or healers. Since an absolute prohibition was not a practical possibility, state regulation of some form was the only answer. As early as 1352 a Royal Edict was passed in France in 1352 which forbade preparations of secret remedies, but over the centuries many were authorized through warrants, and they continued to flourish. The 18th century, however, saw more concerted efforts to control the secret trade, notably after the French Revolution during wider efforts to regulate the Medical Professions and suppress abuses which threatened public health. Yet this insistence on regulation, and notably restrictions on the development and distribution of secret remedies, ran counter to the overriding principles of intellectual and economic freedom, and whilst several decrees were passed between 1789 and 1815, ultimately it was not until 1926 that secret remedies were abolished in France. Property rights overrode concern for public health.
The first decree of note was that of 1803, the ‘Germinal Law’, which followed a few weeks after law regulating medical practice, and was primarily concerned with the education and licensure of pharmacists and the repression of illegal practice of pharmacy. In October of that year a commission was organised, and a set of instructions prepared for owners of secret remedies who had to comply with the new law. It did not expressly ban the sale of secret remedies altogether, however, and was again something of a compromise. Whilst there were prohibitions on advertising or hawking them, subsequent decrees, including one of 1805 actually confirmed the rights of vendors whose remedies had been approved by the government, and in some cases reasserted rights and privileges previously granted under the patents law of 1791. Approved remedies could be sold in Paris and the provinces if they were authorised by local officials; and though to be submitted before the commission, vendors were not obliged to divulge their secret.
As the present Imperial Decree demonstrates, despite the best efforts of the authorities, the secret remedy trade continued to flourish in all its forms. This final effort sought to free society of secret remedies, and its declared purpose was to disseminate knowledge of good remedies whilst discouraging the sale of bad ones. The state would buy and make public the recipes of useful compositions, asserting that it was the duty of owners to co-operate in having them published. All previous permissions would be nullified. Proprietors would submit their recipes to the Minister of the Interior, together with an account of their use and a record of clinical experience to date. A five member commission was established, including three professors from the faculties of medicine, and headed by the distinguished anatomist François Chaussier, professor at the Paris faculty and an authority on medical jurisprudence. As laid out in the present decree, this commission would determine whether the remedy was harmless; if harmless, whether it was useful; and if useful, what price should be paid to acquire it. Once a remedy had been approved, the minister would negotiate an agreement with the inventor, and once confirmed by a State Council, the formula would be published. No inventor would receive an approbation if he insisted on keeping his remedy secret. The law’s larger intent, was not only to protect the public health, by preventing the use of drugs that had no value or contained unknown substances, but also to ‘spread enlightenment’ and ‘discourage charlatanism’.
In the end, however, this 1810 attempt also miscarried, once again compromised by the government’s respect for the inventor’s or owner’s interest and rights to his remedy. ‘In Napoleonic France, the right of property remained ‘inviolable and sacred’; it could and often did outweigh the claims of public health. Although the regimes that followed the First Empire were to create other regulatory institutions, this retreat from the Enlightenment commitment to end secrecy in therapeutics set the pattern for the rest of the century and beyond’ (Ramsey p. 81).

1911. Large folio broadside, 615 x 505mm, pictorial chromolithograph surround and red letterpress, surrounded by gilt border, with larger 95mm tear at tail just touching gilt border, and with further small nicks and tears along upper and right margin; nevertheless a most striking example. A most attractively printed certificate of merit, evoking images of a bygone era pre WWI when traditional rural skills still held sway. Presented to Elea Adine Hare, this large certificate of merit recognises her ‘Proficiency in the Theory and Practice of Cheddar Cheesemaking’, and was awarded in 1911 after examination. Printed in red letterpress, the text is surrounded by a series of appealing vignettes in lithograph depicting various scenes of farming life.
According a family genealogy found online, Elea Adine Hare (1894-1926) was born in 1894 in Saffron Walden, Essex. The tranquil life that she enjoyed as evoked by the certificate was soon to be altered dramatically, as she subsequently served as a Red Cross nurse during WWI. After the war she was employed by the Essex County Council as a milk recorder, but was fatally injured in some sort of accident near a street corner, probably after being struck by a car. She subsequently died on Aug. 14, 1926 at the hospital in Saffron Walden.

1930. Single sheet on crepe paper, 184 x 120mm, printed on recto only along the outer margins, central box apparently blank - though impregnated with secret message to be revealed when heated; clean and fresh. An advertising novelty produced by the famous firm of Beecham’s. As the note along the left margin states: ‘When you suffer from colds, chills, influenza, headache, rheumatism, nerve pains, Beecham’s Powders Act like Magic’. The present curiosity is itself a magical trick to highlight the tag line. The application of a glowing piece of burned string to the central panel will reveal a secret message - which in this case appears to reveal a tortoise! A previous example, showed a chicken, with another, which though difficult to discern, incorporated the phrase ‘Beecham’s Pills’.

1920s?]. Offered together, three boxed reversible dissected wooden puzzles, each @ 125 x 175 x 4mm; each puzzle with chromolithograph sheet in landscape mounted on one side, and cut into 75 pieces; with image of camel in black on verso; puzzles a little dust-soiled; Series No. 4 and 6. contained in the original light blue paper card box with linen hinged lid, with mounted paper title printed in blue on upper lid, Series 10. in Navy blue hinged box lettered in gilt, all three with printed note adhered to inside lid, joints and extremities of boxes all a little rubbed and worn, most noticeably Series No. 4; most appealing examples. Three appeal and seemingly rare advertising solid wood reversible jigsaw puzzles, issued by the famous Birkenhead based shipbuilding company Cammell Laird & Co., Ltd. The company was formed in 1903 with the amalgamation of William and John Laird’s Birkenhead Iron Works and the Sheffield Steel firm of Charles Cammell & Co., Ltd. Known across the globe, the company built more than 1350 ships, playing a key role during both World Wars building both commercial and military vessels, being remembered in particular for the building of the Cunard White Star passenger liner Mauritania, and the first British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal - both in 1938.
Described as a "Cam-Bru-Mac" Reversible Puzzle, the present examples, all scarce, were part of a series of similar games, and show in turn ’Casting a Large Ingot’, a picture of "Rolling a Locomotive Tyre. Sheffield and Birkenhead", and a ‘12,000 Ton Armour Bending Press’. Each puzzle has on the reverse, the famous logo of the company, a large black Camel.

1905. Large 8vo, pp. [iv], 426, [2] imprint; catalogue copiously illustrated throughout, with prices given; some light foxing and soiling; a few gutters exposed in places, but holding firm; in the original printed green card wrappers, book block a little shaken, head and tail of spine worn with slight loss, upper joint cracked but holding, with lower joint cracked at head, spine a little sunned, covers slightly creased and spotted, extremities a little dog-eared; still a good copy. A wonderful priced trade catalogue from the turn of the twentieth century, promoting a myriad of medical and surgical equipment as manufactured by the prize-winning instrument makers, the Rainal brothers, Léon and Jules, renowned in particular for making orthopaedic devices and corsets. The catalogue is divided into 29 sections covering a wide range of medical specialities, though it is the sections highlighting their numerous orthopaedic devices that are particularly striking - and in some cases slightly terrifying! The catalogue begins with a section on ‘bandages herniarires’, with detailed sections on physiological corsets, ‘mécanothérapie’, ‘ankylose’, ‘prosthèse’, ‘appareils pour malades et blessés’, equipment for the care of babies, including incubators, and concluding with a range of ENT instruments.
In 1899 the brothers published Le Bandage herniaire, a comprehensive account of the treatment of hernias, providing both an historical and present day discussion on the use of surgical trusses, including their own observations carried out over twenty-five years of private practice.

1883. 8vo, pp. 23, [1]; lightly browned throughout; with faint library stamp of the Birmingham Medical Institute on half-title; rebound in modern maroon cloth with printed label on upper cover. First separate edition of this statistical paper, first presented before the Epidemiological Society of London, and published in their Transactions, highlighting the main causes of death amongst European women and children living in India. As Ewart makes clear, the discrepancy between the mortality rates for those in England, as opposed to the families of European soldiers serving in India was ‘appalling’ - and caused primarily due to malaria, dysentery, cholera, contagious diseases, heat and ‘general debility’.
Very much of its time, Ewart’s paper at times makes for slightly uncomfortable reading, but nevertheless provides an invaluable insight into attitudes and theories of the day.
‘In drawing this paper to a close, it has occurred to me that although Government may accomplish much in lessening the excessive mortality among the women and children of the European Army of India, the benevolent objects which it has always had in view will never be attended with the desired measure of success until the maternal parents are taught, in simple, plain and intelligible language, divested of all technicalities, the precepts and principles of personal hygienic and domestic sanitation. That this might be done may be premised from the control which it can and does exercise upon the families of the soldiers through the military department. Thus, every soldier’s wife who can read - and now, thanks to the universal introduction of state education in England, the time is fast approaching when every woman in these realms who may become a soldier’s wife, will be in a position to read - might be taught the principles of hygiene and sanitation, so that, when required to accompany her husband to India, she may realise the vast importance of pure air, pure water, wholesome food, good cookery, plenty of house room, free ventilation daily exercise and bathing, avoiding undue exposure to the sun, efficient clothing, a perfect system of conservancy and absolute cleanliness, etc., in ensuring the preservation of her own health, and the proper management and rearing of her children. It would not, I fancy, be a very difficult matter to furnish her with a sanitary primer, written in plain and simple language, setting forth, very briefly and concisely, all the simple truths necessary for her to know, regarding matters relating to the conservation of her own health and that of her offspring. Such a work - intelligible to the commonest understanding - if mastered and acted upon, supplemented wherever and whenever practicable by lectures, would go some way in improving the health and lessening the waste of life among the women and children of the European Army of India’ (p. 15).
Sir Joseph Ewart (1831-1906) ‘studied medicine at Anderson’s College, Glasgow, and Guy’s Hospital. After qualifying in 1853, he joined the Bengal Medical Service, then a part of the East India Company. At the time of the Mutiny, he was with the Mehwar Bheel Corps at Kherwarra. Having published a Digest of Vital Statistics of the European and Native Armies in India in 1859, he was given charge of the statistical office at Calcutta. He then became successively professor of physiology, professor of medicine and principal of the Calcutta Medical College, senior physician to the College Hospital and senior surgeon to the European General Hospital. As a municipal commissioner and magistrate of Calcutta, he did much for the city’s sanitation and water supply. A breakdown in his health compelled Ewart to return to England in 1876, and he retired three years later, with the rank of deputy surgeon-general. Settling in Brighton, he devoted his energies to municipal affairs. He sat on the town council from 1884 to 1905 and held office as mayor from 1891 to 1894’ (Munks Roll).

1876. 8vo, pp. [ii] half title, [3]-16; lightly browned throughout; stitched as issued in the original green printed wrappers, with paper accession label at head of upper wrapper, spine split and covers detached, rear cover with loss at tail, and a marginal tear, upper wrapper with marginal nicks, covers a little stained. Uncommon first edition of this pamphlet, one of a number of essays published by the noted British ophthalmic surgeon, Charles Taylor M.D. FRCSE (1829-1909), who worked at the Nottingham and Midland Eye Infirmary. “A consummate and imperturbable operator, especially in cases of cataract, he enjoyed a practice that extended beyond Great Britain” (DNB). He was also known as a campaigner against the Contagious Diseases Act and vivisection.
In all Taylor seems to have published five lectures, all of which were available for purchase for one shilling, although all of which are now scarce. A compilation of his lectures was published in 1888 as ‘Lectures on diseases of the Eye’.

1814. 8vo, viii, [iv], 236; with folding engraved plate; lightly browned and foxed throughout; with ex-libris on front free endpaper ‘Bücherie Johannes Cotta’ and stamped date ‘21. Dez. 1925’; bound in contemporary red marbled paste-boards, with yellow and green paper labels on spine lettered in gilt, head and tail of spine and joints rather rubbed and worn, with further light scuffing to surfaces, extremities a little bumped and worn; still a good copy. Scarce first edition of this compilation of historical facts and events, popular beliefs, and spurious anecdotes, and the work of the Austrian bibliographer Franz Arnold Gräffer (1785-1852). The folding engraved plate (sometimes bound as a frontispiece though here found at the end of the work) is extremely striking and rather curious depicting as it does a rider on a horse, composed out of various other animals.
Gräffer’s ‘cabinet’ includes an impressive range of ‘curiosities’ from the fate of Jean d’Arc (was she really burnt at the stake?), the riches of Rome (with full accounts), to a listing of automatons and famous kisses. The reader learns too about the household accounting instructions of Mme de Maintenon and her helpful money-saving tips such as get yourself invited to dinner.
The son of the bookseller August Gräffer (d. 1816), after first studying art, Franz subsequently joined his father’s business. For a time librarian to Prince Moritz von Liechtenstein and Count Karl Harrach (1761-1829), he later devoted himself to the publishing and antiquarian business, though after losing most of his fortune in the process, he turned to literary pursuits, writing some 60 works, predominantly relating to Viennese literary life. Together with Johann Jakob Czikann (1789-1855) he published ‘Oesterreichische National-Encyklopädie’.

1835. Small 8vo, pp. viii, 86, with a number of small woodcuts; title page a little soiled with some light paper abrasion at upper margin, lightly browned throughout, particularly at margins; uncut in the original green pebble-grained cloth, with printed paper label on upper cover (somewhat soiled), and remains of paper label along spine, joints and head and tail of spine neatly repaired. First edition of this uncommon introduction to the fibrous structures in particular, by Alexander M’Nab, Jun ‘Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, London’. According to the preface, Macnab has drawn upon more ‘voluminous works’, and hopes that his abridged compilation will provide a more accessible work for those ‘unable to conveniently to peruse more elaborate productions’. The woodcuts are apparently by ‘Mr Berryman’, and although as far as we can tell, Macnab makes no direction citation from other works, he does refer to case histories as described by physicians both in England, Europe and America, including ‘Dr. Kirkbride, resident physician of the Pennsylvania Hospital’, (p. 22) ‘Dr. Warren of Boston’ (p. 23), Dupuytren (p. 23), Bichat (p. 56) Delpech (p. 65) and ‘Mr. Hunter’ (p. 62) as well as a number of cases highlighted in the Medical Gazette.

1953. 4to, pp. 34; with a number of 11 text figures and 16 tables; lightly browned; stapled as issued in the original printed wrappers, evidence of previous label on lower rear cover. A later paper by the noted Russian born geologist and chemist, Taisia Maximova Stadnichenko (1894-1958), considered one of the foremost geochemists in her field, and whose work focused on the distribution of germanium and the minor-element content in coal. Born in Taganash in the Crimea, she attended Petrograd University before joining the Russian Geological Survey as a chemist, and was part of a surveying expedition to the Island of Sakahalin in 1917. During WWI she moved to the US as an interpreter for the Russian Mission, and remained as a representative to the Washington Disarmament Peace Conference after the war. After the war, she continued her professional life as a researcher at the University of Illinois and as a professor at Vassar College from 1922 to 1935. In 1935, Stadnichenko led the first U.S Geological Survey exploring the minor-element distribution within coal by collecting samples of coal ash for element content analysis, which found germanium and other elements within the coal ash. Stadnichenko is widely considered instrumental in the discovery and understanding of coal's structure and origin.

1871. 8vo, pp. [2], 152; with colour title-page vignette of the red cross; browned throughout due to paper quality, with some foxing and spotting, and occasional light marginal dampstaining, and faint white paint mark affecting upper margin of p. 1; uncut in the original printed drab wrappers, with red cross vignette on upper cover, head and tail of spine cracked and chipped with some loss, with further minor tears to spine, covers darkened and soiled, with white paint on upper margin of front cover, extremities all somewhat furled and nicked, and overall slightly dog-eared, but still a good copy of a scarce work. Scarce first and only edition of this less well-known work by Pirogov, considered the greatest Russian surgeon and one of the greatest military surgeons of all time. ‘At the invitation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Pirogov inspected military hospitals during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and the Russian-Turkish War of 1877–1878. During these trips, Pirogov noted that many of the provisions previously expressed by him regarding the organization of assistance and treatment of the wounded were implemented. The result of the inspections was the publication of two more major works devoted to the issues of military field surgery: A report on a visit to military medical institutions in Germany, Lorraine and Alsace in 1870 (1871) and Military medicine and private assistance in the theater of war in Bulgaria and in the rear of the active army in 1877-1878 (1879). With regard to these works, the outstanding surgeon Ernst von Bergmann, who worked at the universities of Russia and Germany, wrote: ‘We will never forget that our German surgery... rests on the works of the Russian Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov’ (Samohvalov & Reva, Military Field Surgeon, in the Anniversary Issue, Bulletin of Pirogov National Medical & Surgical Centre p. 22). Pirigov was particularly pleased to see that his recommendations on the use of plaster casts to had by this time been widely adopted. He had been the first to use plaster of paris dressings in the treatment of mass casualties during the Crimean war, developing his own technique, independently of Mathijsen (whose work he knew). His methods and application consisted of using coarse cloth, either in large pieces or in strips, that were immersed in a liquid mixture of plaster of paris immediately before applying them to the limbs which were protected by stockings and cotton pads. Large dressings were reinforced by pieces of wood. On the basis of his wartime experiences, Pirogov believed that all patients with fractures due to missile wounds should not be evacuated from the forward dressing stations until the limb had been immobilized in a proper dressing of plaster of paris. As a result of his and Mathijsen’s work, plaster of paris casts had been generally adopted by military and civilian surgeons throughout Europe by 1870.
It was also during the Crimean crisis, that Pirogov, with the help of his patron, the Grand Duchess Helene Pavlovna, became instrumental in establishing a female nurse corps to improve the care of the Russian sick and wounded, at the same time that Florence Nightingale was beginning a similar program in British military hospitals. Pirigov is credited with having conceived the idea of the Russian Red Cross Society, through the formation in 1854 of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross Community of Sisters of Mercy for the help of wounded soldiers of Crimean War. The first group of nurses gathered 35 women, with the numbers soon rising to 250. As surgeon general during the Crimea, he introduced the mass use of anaesthesia in surgical operations at the front, during the Sebastopol siege, and developed triage on the battlefield, sorting patients according to the severity of their wounds, and was an early advocate of the importance of hygiene, which he emphasized in his later classic work on military surgery based upon his military experiences, Grundzüge der allgemeinen Kriegschirurgie in 1864. An ardent medical educator and reformer, having witnessed the terrible conditions during the siege of Sebastopol, he came once again into conflict with military administration, and after his sharp criticism of the campaign, was forced to resign his surgical professorship at St. Petersburg’s Academy of Military Medicine in 1856. He then entered the Ministry of Education where he held several key positions before his retirement, becoming an active social reformer, as well as an outspoken advocate of the freedom and higher education of women.

1866. Small folio, pp. [ii], 4 with ten engraved plates and plans (one double-page); some occasional minor marginal dust-soiling, and some light foxing; in modern marbled wrappers with new endpapers; a good copy. First separate edition of this attractively illustrated architectural account of the design and construction of the new anatomical Institute at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Berlin, by the noted German architect Friedrich Albert Cremer (1824-1891). The engraved plates include depiction’s of some of the finer details of the building, including some of the ornate light fittings, and even the water closets, with plans of the proposed grounds also included.
Cremer, the son of the builder Johann Peter Cremer (1785-1853), studied architecture at the Berlin Academy in 1846. After some time spent in the Prussian Army as a hydraulics engineer, he returned to Berlin in 1859 and was appointed as a building Inspector. His first major architectural project, together with Carl Johann Christian Zimmermann (1831-1911), was an expansion to the Berlin debt prison to create a women’s prison. This was followed by his two most famous commissions for the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität: designing both a new Anatomical Institute building as discussed here, and under the guidance of the new director of Chemistry August Wilhelm von Hofmann, a new purpose-built chemistry laboratory, about which Cremer also published a similar account in 1868, Das neue chemische laboratorium zu Berlin.
The present account was also published in Zeitschrift für Bauwesen 16/1866 and 17/1867.

1835. Small folio, pp. [viii], 36, [2] duplicate leaf of pp. 35-6,[37]-44, [4] explanation to plates and vitae curriculum; with four engraved plates, one partially hand-coloured in blue and red, and signed ‘Franz Wagner del, C. Guinard sc’; title-page somewhat browned, with further browning and foxing throughout, plates quite prominently foxed and browned, corners a little furled, with a few small marginal nicks and tears, ink accession number at upper margin of title-page with very faint blindstamp at tail; sympathetically rebound in modern black marbled papers to style, with some light wear to joints and extremities. A detailed dissertation on pathological anatomy, focusing upon human and animal abnormalities, and in particular the various types of bone fissures. For a doctoral thesis it is surprisingly well produced in the larger folio format, using appealing typography and including four finely engraved plates illustrating the head of a young lamb or calf.
Conrad Meyer-Ahrens (1813-1872) was a Swiss physician and medical historian. He studied at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin where he publicly defended the present dissertation. The dedication is to his teacher, Johannes Müller.