DRAKE’S LANDMARK STUDY OF NORTH AMERICAN DISEASES: “AN EPIC STUDY OF THE PHYSICAL STATE OF THE NATION DURING THE DECADES OF THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT”

DRAKE, Daniel. A Systematic Treatise, Historical, Etiological and Practical, on the Principal Diseases of the Interior Valley of North America, as they appear in the Caucasian, African, Indian and Esquimaux Varieties of its Population. Cincinnati: Winthrop B. Smith & Co., 1850. Thick octavo, contemporary full brown sheep sympathetically rebacked, original black morocco spine labels laid down. $3500.

First edition of Drake’s landmark study of North American diseases, with 19 maps (one folding), and numerous in-text tables.

“Drake’s heroic subject was the North American continent: its topography, meteorology, and ethnology as they related to the health of its people… This is an epic record of the physical state of the nation during the decades of the westward movement and offers a physician’s view of health and sickness among the peoples of a vast and diversified region” (Lilly, Notable Medical Books, 203). “It is a mine of information… characterized by the most painstaking accuracy of statement, a graceful and clear style, a most unprejudiced and scientific weighing of evidence, and great caution in references” (DAB). “This classical contribution to the social history of North America includes the most important work on the natural history of malaria published up to that time” (Garrison & Morton 1777). A later continuation volume was posthumously edited and issued by a different publisher four years later. Howes D469 (b). Sabin 20805. Gift inscriptions.

A lovely, clean copy in contemporary binding, expertly rebacked.