Improved System of Botanic Medicine; Founded Upon Correct
Item #47270
HOWARD, Horton. An Improved System of Botanic Medicine; Founded Upon Correct Physiological Principles; Embracing A Concise View of Anatomy and Physiology; Together with An Illustration of the New Theory of Medicine to Which Is Added A Treatise on Female Complaints, Midwifery, and the Diseases of Children. Columbus, OH: Horton J. Howard, 1836. 3 vols. bound in 2. 180, 465pp., including 33 plates; 215pp., including 17 plates. Modern calf, gilt morocco labels. First few leaves of 2nd volume stained. Old light tidemark in upper outer corner of final 47 leaves of 2nd volume, including illustrations. Scattered foxing in all volumes. A good plus copy, solidly bound. Cordasco 30-0484. Alex Berman & Michael A. Flannery, America's Botanico-Medical Movements (New York, 2001), pp. 47-48, 70-71. American Imprints 38119a. Third edition of the first "Neo-Thomsonian" book, revised and corrected. Horton Howard (1770-1833), a Quaker doctor originally from North Carolina, aimed to improve upon the work of herbalist Samuel Thomson (1769-1843), streamlining Thomson's botanico-medical system and expanding his materia medica from seventy to 112 plants. A former agent of Thomson's, Howard split with his employer in 1832 and published the first edition of An Improved System that same year. Concurrently, Howard organized the "Improved Botanics" group, the first of what would become many neo-Thomsonian organizations in the mid-19th century. The lives of both Howard and his faction were cut short in 1833, when his popular cholera syrup (Vol. II, p. 322) proved ineffective during a Columbus outbreak.
Price: $600.00