Description of the Distinct, Confluent, and Inoculated Small Pox, Varioloid Disease, Cow Pox, and Chicken Pox.

John D Fisher

Boston, Lilly, Wait, 1834

Second edition. 4to. iv, 73 p. Color illustrations. Hardcover with contemporary boards. Wear to cover. Internally, good. Clean, unmarked pages. Front end page detached. Evidence of prior institutional ownership. 

After receiving his degree from the Harvard Medical School in 1825, Fisher spent two years studying in Paris with Laennec, Andral, and Velpeau. This book was prepared from materials Fisher collected in Paris. Much of the original edition of 1829 was destroyed in a fire, hence the publication of this little-altered second edition in 1834. "The paintings from which the plates in this volume are engraved, and of which they are accurate copies, were made in the Hospitals of Paris during the years 1825 and 1826, a period at which the variolous disease prevailed epidemically in that city. They were executed by a French artist under my own immediate direction, and were all begun and finished at the bed-side of the patients from whom they were taken" (dedication, p. iii). Fisher's book "is dedicated to James Jackson, from whom he conceived the idea of preparing the work, and is a quarto containing life-size plates made by a distinguished artist. It was a work of considerable importance. Later the plates and unsold copies were destroyed by fire" (Kelly & Burrage, American Medical Biographies).