FULTON’S COPY -- WITH PUBLISHER’S PRESENTATION INSCRIPTION
BIGELOW, Jacob, M.D. A poem on professional life, delivered by appointment of the society of Phi Beta Kappa, at their anniversary, August 29, 1811. Boston: J. Belcher, 1811
FIRST EDITION., 8vo., 15, [1], 11, [1] pp.
Unbound; title page and last page lightly soiled, slight browning and spotting. Upper right-hand corner of title torn off, not affecting text. Bookplate of John Farquhar Fulton. With inscription, “ J.H. Payne, Boston, March, presented by the publisher.” , First edition. Bound with this is another work, simply entitled Recommencement, which is separately paginated but without title; this is perhaps also by Bigelow, though it is un-signed. The present work was written just months after Bigelow received his M.D. He had not yet built his reputation as doctor and botanist, so it is not known why he was given this appointment by the Phi Beta Kappa society. Bigelow (1786-1879) earned his M.D. at the University of Pennsylvania. He was a Harvard professor and medical practitioner in Boston for sixty years. Although he worked and lectured in the medical field, Bigelow’s true love was botany. He compiled a three-volume survey of the medicinal plants of the United States, American Medical Botany, one of the first two books in America to include plates printed in color. While his Botany was being published, Bigelow also co-authored the first national pharmacopoeia. Provenance: Fulton (1899-1960) was an American physiologist and practicing physician who was instrumental in establishing the University of Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis. Fulton received his Ph.D from Oxford, and his M.D. from Harvard, and participated in the first clinical trials of penicillin in the United States.
$US175
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