STOKES, WILLAM. 1804-1878.


The Diseases of the Heart and the Aorta. Dublin: Hodges and Smith, 1854. 8vo (220 x 140 mm). Publisher's cloth. Endpapers renewed, sunning and stains to cloth, light spotting.Provenance: James Simson, Melrose, Scotland (ownership inscription dated 1869). FIRST EDITION of this classic monograph on heart disease, in which the leading Irish physician gives the first description of paroxysmal tachycardia. Garrison-Morton 2760; Norman 2024.WITH: A Treatise on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Diseases of the Chest. Part I. Diseases of the Lung and Windpipe. Dublin: Hodges and Smith, 1837. 8vo (210 x 135 mm). Publisher's textured brown cloth, paper spine label. Joints and hinges cracked, spine label chipped, foxing throughout. FIRST EDITION. "Stokes, most prominent of the Irish school of medicine, established his reputation by his book on diseases of the chest. Important among its contents are his discovery of a stage of pneumonia prior to that described by Laennec as the first, his observations that contraction of the side has sometimes followed the cure of pneumonia and that paralysis of the intercostal muscles and diaphragm may result from pleurisy, and his employment of the stethoscope as an aid to the detection of foreign bodies in the air passages" (Garrison-Morton 2213). Bedford 280; Norman 2023.