WARREN, Jonathan Mason (1811–1867)

First edition. – ”The first rhinoplastic operation in the United States was performed by Dr. Jonathan Mason Warren of Boston in 1835, after a trip to Europe where he observed the work of Dupuytren, Roux, Dieffenbach and others, and his contributions to plastic surgery included the first operation on the hard palate, later known as uranoplasty, in 1843.” (Gnudi & Webster). His article was published in April, 1843, in the New-England Quarterly Journal of Medicine and Surgery (Garrison-Morton 5745). A full account of this operation is also given in his Surgical Observations (1867), in which he refers to one hundred operations for fissure of the soft and hard palate performed by him. The instruments which he used to repair fissures of the hard and soft palates are shown in the folding-out plate. The book has fourteen chapters starting with the head, face, neck, chest, etc. ending with a chapter on anaesthetics and local anaesthesia. Warren devoted the second and third chapters to the repair of the face and neck and to eye plastics and burn defects. The book contains some of the earliest American contributions to plastic surgery, including a section on rhinoplastic operations with illustrations and restoration of the lower eyelid. Jonathan Mason Warren was the grandson of John Warren and the second son of the famous John Collins Warren. He assisted his father in the operation for the first public demonstration of the use of ether for surgical anaesthesia (1846), of which he gives a description in the last chapter of his Surgical Observations. The book is also of interest for the history of photography. Several of the wood-engravings and chromolithographs depicting patients are made after photographs.

Collation: Pp (6), [xi]-xiv, [2] list of illustrations, 630, (2) errata. With 6 lithographed plates (three printed in colours by J.H. Bufford’s, Boston, Mass.) numbered I-V and one folding with instruments, and 13 wood engravings in the text.

Binding: Publisher’s green cloth, neatly rebacked with the old spine laid down. Lacks back free endpaper.

Provenance: Bookplate: Morgan County Medical Society, Jacksonville, Illinois, being a gift from Drs A.E. & J.A. Prince from the library of Dr. David Prince in Febr. 16, 1906. David Prince (1816–1889), professor of surgery and anatomy in Jacksonville, Illinois. During the Civil War he was a surgeon of volunteers, and was one of the first in Illinois to use ether as an anesthetic. His best-known work is Plastics and Orthopedics (1871).

References: For Warren’s contributions on plastic surgery and his operation for fissure of the hard and soft palate see Garrison-Morton 5743.3 and 5745; Kelly and Burrage, pp 1264-65; Rutkow, The History of Surgery in the United States, GS67; Rutkow, Surgery, An Illustrated History, p 472; Gnudi & Webster, pp 323-25.