Gilchrist — The Use of Sea Voyages in Medicine — 1771 Third Edition — Tuberculosis & Climatotherapy

GILCHRIST, Ebenezer. The Use of Sea Voyages in Medicine; and particularly in a Consumption; with Observations on that Disease. A New Edition, revised, corrected, and enlarged. London: Printed for T. Cadell, in the Strand, 1771. 

8vo. xiii, [3], 308, [12] pp., including index. Later half brown morocco over marbled boards, smooth spine ruled in gilt with red morocco lettering-piece.

The substantially enlarged third edition of Scottish physician Ebenezer Gilchrist’s influential study of the therapeutic effects of sea travel, particularly in the treatment of pulmonary consumption.

First published in 1756 and enlarged in a second edition the following year, Gilchrist’s work was one of the earliest sustained medical arguments for sea voyages as therapy. Gilchrist considered not merely sea air, but the effects of motion, climate, diet, sea-sickness and prolonged residence at sea, supporting his arguments with detailed clinical histories. This 3rd 1771 edition represents a major expansion of the work: whereas the second edition comprised only 186 pages, this revised version extends to more than 300 pages plus index.

Gilchrist devoted particular attention to pulmonary consumption — broadly corresponding to pulmonary tuberculosis — then one of the most feared and poorly understood diseases in European medicine. His advocacy of sea voyages became part of the developing eighteenth- and nineteenth-century tradition of therapeutic travel, sea air and climatotherapy. The work is included in Garrison-Morton-Norman 11158 among significant works in pulmonary medicine and medical travel.

The subject subsequently attracted considerable attention: a French translation appeared in 1770, and Gilchrist’s work remained part of medical discussions surrounding climate and travel well into the nineteenth century. The 1771 edition itself continues to be cited in modern scholarship on the history of medical travel and therapeutic climates.

Condition

Very good. Attractive later half-morocco binding, firm and sound, with light rubbing and a few minor surface marks to the leather; marbled boards well preserved. Contents generally clean and crisp with light toning and occasional minor spotting or handling marks. Old pencil and bookseller’s annotations to the endpapers. A handsome, well-preserved copy.

Size

20 x 13.5cm

Bibliographical Note

ESTC T96804; Garrison-Morton-Norman 11158.