The plague in Egypt
Das Pest-Contagium in Egypten und seine Quelle, nebst einem Beitrage zum Absperr-System.
8vo (150 x 230 mm). (2), XVIII, 257, (3) pp. Contemporary green full calf, spine prettily gilt with title and ornaments, cover with gilt rules and border decoration enclosing a blind-tooled Rocaille centrepiece. Leading edges gilt, gilt inner dentelle, all edges gilt. Red silk divider.
€ 650,00
First edition of this important study of the plague in Egypt and the quarantine laws to prevent its spread; the "principal work" (Hirsch) of the German physician J. F. Reinhold Grohmann (1784-1867). Educated in Leipzig and Vienna, Grohmann was travelling to Constantinople when the Russo-Turkish War of 1806 stopped short his journey in Bucharest. He remained there and witnessed a particularly severe plague epidemic in 1813. He spent much of his subsequent career in the East before settling in Vienna; from 1831 to 1833 he was a member of a committee convened to formulate new standards for plague epidemics. In his medical work he described the plague as a nervous fever affecting the brain, little influenced by the climate. His son Paul Grohmann would go on to be one of Austria's most famous mountaineers of his age.
Very well preserved in a splendid Austrian master binding. Removed from a baronial library with a crowned monogram stamp "MK" to title-page.
Ibrahim-Hilmy I, 278. Hirsch II, 661. OCLC 14832432. Not in Wellcome.
