MATTSON, Morris (1809?-1885). The American Vegetable Practice, Or a New and Improved Guide to Health, Designed for the Use of Families. Boston: Daniel L. Hale, 1841.

2 volumes in one, 8vo (225 x 135 mm). 24 chromolithographs, one folding engraving, 9 in-text woodcuts. (Spotting throughout.) Contemporary reverse calf, green morocco lettering-piece gilt (worn). Provenance: R.H. Crosby (early signature).

FIRST EDITION of both volumes of Mattson's work, a major advance in practical medicine. Mattson was a Physician to the Reformed Boston Dispensary, a Lecturer on Physiology, and the Practice of Medicine. In this work, he broke with Thomsonian medicine, popular in the 19th-century, which focused on ridding the body of toxins through natural herbal remedies, instead presenting a more accurate and well-researched treatise, considered superior to previous publications regarding botanical approaches to medicine. Of the many illustrations throughout are chromolithographs depicting plants or plant parts, and a folding double plate engraving of the human skeleton, and woodcuts of various parts of human anatomy. [Laid in:] Several leaves of manuscript notes, comprising formulas for cures using plant material.

Selections from the Property of Dr. Eugene Vigil, Antiquariat Botanicum

MATTSON, Morris (1809?-1885). The American Vegetable Practice, Or a New and Improved Guide to Health, Designed for the Use of Families. Boston: Daniel L. Hale, 1841.