Holmes, Oliver Wendell

"The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever. Read before the Boston Society for Medical Improvement, by Oliver W. Holmes, M.D., and published by request of the Society." In The New England Quarterly Journal of Medicine and Surgery, volume 1 (1843), pp. 503-530. Boston: W.D. Clapp, Jr., 1843



8vo (8 3/8 x 5 1/8 in.; 213 x 130 mm). Engraved portrait of George B. Doane, M.D. Twentieth-century red morocco, gold-stamped title on upper cover and on spine, edges gilt, Minot's pencil notes on front free endpaper, photocopy of presentation leaf laid in; rebacked, corners rubbed, joints stained.

George Minot

Grolier / Norman 72b; PMM 316a

First edition of one of the rarest American contributions to medicine. "No American publication in the nineteenth century saved more lives than this unassuming paper, founded solely on the evidence of observed cases" (Grolier), bound and presented to George Minot (1885-1950).

"Holmes declared in 1843 that puerperal fever was contagious, that before attending women in childbed doctors who have been performing postmortem dissections or who have treated cases of puerperal fever should wash their hands in calcium chloride and change their clothes. This made no impact at all except to arouse the wrathful contempt of all orthodox obstetricians" (PMM). Because the paper appeared in a periodical that only lasted one year, it escaped wide notice, and Holmes undertook a revised and enlarged edition in 1855 (GM 6276).

This copy was presented to George Minot at a dinner given in his honor in 1928. He, with William P. Murphy, introduced the raw-liver diet as a treatment for pernicious anemia (caused by B12 deficiency).