OLOF  EDLUND Antiquarian Bookseller STOCKHOLM

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Schweich, Heinrich
ZWEI ABHANDLUNGEN ZUR PRACTISCHEN MEDICIN. 1. EINLEITUNG IN DIE MEDICINISCHE GEOGRAPHIE. 2. UEBER DIE VERFEHLTE RICHTUNG DER "HISTORISCHEN PATHOLOGIE"; NEBST DARLEGUNG DER BIS JETZT NOCH UNBEKANNTEN TODEURSACHE IN DER RUHR.
Düsseldorf, Stahl'schen Buchhandlung (K. Oenicke), 1846.
8vo. VIII, [4], 80 pp.

Original boards, printed wrappers laid down, as issued, spine split, front board detached.

$ 125

First edition. Two early treatises on climatic and geographical factors in medicine, by Heinrich Schweich, on title identified as "Arzt, Wundarzt und Geburtshelfer zu Kreuznach". "In a 24-page essay another German physician, Heinrich Schweich, observed that many people had attempted to write a medical geography; a tremendous amount of data had been collected; but no one had been successful in developing a useful system. His explanation was that a majority of physicians believed that "there is just nothing to be learned from medical geography that can be applied in everyday practice". Two reasons for this attitude, in his view, were the lack of a textbook, and the fact that the field had not been defined clearly. Indeed Schweich himself was not clear about its boundaries, and his thinking veered more towards geographical nosology (a forerunner to geographical pathology) than nosological geography. Like so many critics both then and now, Schweich was strong on criticism but weak in suggesting alternative approaches"(Frank A. Barrett in August Hirsch: As Critic of, and Contributor to, Geographical Medicine and Medical Geography (Medical History, suppl. 20 (2000), p. 99).