BRIGHAM, Charles Brooks (1845–1903)

First edition. Brigham graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1870 and served as Surgeon in Chief of the Ambulance Internationale de l’École Forestière in Nancy during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71; he afterwards returned to the United States and became one of the earliest practitioners of surgery in California. Brigham was one of the first American medical writers to illustrate his works with mechanically reproduced photographs – a practice that he may have begun in Quelques observations, which contains two albumen prints showing different stages of a plastic operation on the upper lip, and two prints of amputations at the shoulder. The work itself discusses 20 types of surgical operations performed at the Ambulance Internationale, including plastic repairs of the face, fractures of the skull and limbs, amputations and resections, and the treatment of bullet wounds. Brigham contributed in The Western Lancet (1873-74) and in Boston Medical and Surgical Journal (1878) with surgical reports illustrated with mechanically reproduced photographs of excellent quality, that may be the first in an American medical journal.

Collation: Pp (6), vi, 101, (3). With 4 plates, each with a photograph (an albumen print) mounted on heavy paper.

Binding: Original printed wrappers, rebacked. Preserved in a cloth drop-back box with black morocco spine title label, gilt.

References: Jeremy Norman Cat 33 (1999), this copy; Rutkow, History, GS82, GSp315 and ORp126.