Elements of Surgery. In which are contained All the essential and necessary Principles of the Art; with an Account of the Nature and Treatment of Chirurgical Disorders, and a Description of the Operations, Bandages, Instruments, and Dressings, according to the modern and most approved Practice. Adapted to the Use and Camp and Navy as well as of the Domestic Surgeon. Illustrated with Twenty-Five Copper-Plates

London: Printed for J. and P. Knapton..., 1746. FIRST EDITION. 8vo, 204 x 120 mms., pp. [vi], 324. [12 - Index], 25 folding engraved plates, which are numbered 1-3, then lettered A-Y (minus J and V), contemporary calf, rebacked in morocco, dark red label on spine; generally a good copy, with clear impressions of the plates. The autograph of the unbiquitiusly-promiscuious nomenclature "John Smith" on the top margin of the title-page, the Caldecott bookplate on the front paste-down end- paper, and on the top margin of the recto of the front free end-paper, "John Yerbury Dent/ 1918" and below that and ex-libris stamp, "J. R. Kirkup." "John Kirkup, MD, MA, FRCS, Dip Hist Med studied at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and St Mary's Hospital, London, qualifying in 1952. After service in the Royal Navy he worked as an orthopedic surgeon for the Bath Clinical Area, Somerset, introducing ankle joint replacement to the United Kingdom in 1976. Always intrigued by the evolution of surgery from its pre-historic roots, Mr Kirkup edited facsimiles of Wiseman's Of Wounds (1676) and Woodall's Surgions Mate (1617), published A Historical Guide to British Orthopaedic Surgery, and contributed chapters in books on Ambroise Paré, on pain management during surgery, on trepanation, on the battle against infection, on damaged surgeon's equipment of the Mary Rose shipwreck and on instrumentation generally. He published a wide variety of journal communications including and extended series on surgical instruments and on the history of foot and ankle surgery, and twelve surgical entries in the New Dictionary of National Biography. He has been Hunterian, Vicary, Sydenham and Hamilton Russell Lecturer, was awarded the Sir Arthur Keith Medal of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and has advised widely on museum collections, especially in the UK, Portugal and Australia. Formerly President of the British Society for Medical History, President of the History Section of the Royal Society of Medicine, Honorary Archivist of the British Orthopaedic Association and Chairman of the Historical Medical Equipment Society, Mr Kirkup is currently Honorary Curator of the Historical Instrument Collection at the Royal College of Surgeons, London, and Lecture in Surgical History to the Society of Apothecaries, London. He is also about to publish a book on the evolution of surgical instruments" (springer.com). John Yerbury Dent was a practicing physician who advocated the use of apomorphine for the treatment of alcoholism