VEGETABLE MATERIA MEDICA OF THE UNITED STATES OR MEDICAL BOTANY

1818. BARTON,William P.C. VEGETABLE MATERIA MEDICA OF THE UNITED STATES; OR MEDICAL BOTANY: CONTAINING A BOTANICAL, GENERAL, AND MEDICAL HISTORY, OF MEDICINAL PLANTS INDIGENOUS TO THE UNITED STATES. Volume I. [& II.] Philadelphia: H. C. Carey & I. Lea, 1825-1818. A mixed set: second edition of volume one, printed seven years after the first, and a first edition of volume two. Illustrated with 50 colored engravings (24 in Vol. 1 + 26 in Vol. 2) after drawings by the author, including one folding plate. There is a note `to subscribers' page, with an erratum, at the end of Vol. 1., and a 'list of subscribers' at the end of Vol. 2. Two quarto volumes rebound to period in 1/4 maroon leather and marbled boards. Ex library, the only mark being ink and perforated stamps on title-pages and in a few other places in text, not effecting plates. The plates are clean and bright, and unmarked, despite scant light foxing to some tissue guards. A lovely set. Barton (1785-1856) was a botanist, teacher and naval surgeon. He studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. After completing his medical studies he was appointed naval surgeon in 1809. In 1815 he was appointed Professor of Botany at the University of Pennsylvania, where he led herborizing expeditions along the Schuylkill River. But he remained on the Navy's rolls all his life: In 1842 he was ordered by Navy Department to Washington and became the first of the chiefs of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery and, in 1852 was president of the Board of Medical Examiners. (D.N.B.). References, for the first edition: Barton, p. 9 - "a key book"; Nissen 85; Sabin 3863, Wellcome II, p. 110, G & M 1841).