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WARDROP, James. On Aneurism, And Its Cure By A New Operation, Dedicated By Permission To The King.
London: Printed for Longman and Co.,..., 1828. First edition. With a presentation inscription reading ‘For Dr. Pitcairn with the compliments of the author.' The recipient has also put his ownership signature on the front pastedown with an added note ‘From The Author, London 1830.' Tall 8vo., original boards which have been rebacked with a late 19th century cloth spine with the title and author's name in gilt, (12), (118),(2)pp. With seven plates, including one plate in colour. Ex-library with the rubber-stamp of the ‘Royal Army Medical Corps Library' on the pastedown, half-title, the top of p.1, and the title, which also has ‘Duplicate' written in ink, with a late 19th century spine, some wear to the edges of the boards but certainly a very good copy of this important and scarce work on aneurysms.
Not in Garrison & Morton, which does list Wardrop's 1827 article the ‘Case of Carotid aneurism, successfully treated by tying the subclavian artery.' (G & M 2959). According to the Army List of 1842-1854, it appears that Dr. Pitcairn was a Staff-Surgeon, 1st class in the 58th Foot. James Wardrop [1782-1869] Scottish surgeon. Wardrop was appointed House Surgeon to the Edinburgh Infirmary at age 19. He then practiced in London, Paris, and Vienna, returning to Edinburgh in 1804, where he began to concentrate his medical activities on the pathology and diseases of the eye. He returned to London in 1808 and in 1818 he was appointed Surgeon Extraordinary to the Prince Regent, and Surgeon in Ordinary to the King in 1828. Wardrop was a strong advocate of medical reform and spent many years practicing among the poor, founding the West London Hospital of Surgery, which was a charitable hospital. ‘Wardrop possessed great abilities and was an original thinker and actor. He was the first surgeon in England to remove a tumour of the lower jaw by excising a portion, and this places him high in the list of contemporary operating surgeons at a particularly brilliant period of English operative surgery.' He published the above title in 1828 and it is on this publication that Wardrop's reputation as a surgeon largely rests. ‘It brought into practical use a modification of Brasdor's operation for the cure of aneurysm by distal ligature of the affected vessel--that is to say, by tying it upon the side of the tumour farthest from the heart. Wardrop's operation is still successfully employed in cases of aneurysm of the blood-vessels at the root of the neck, where it is impossible to adopt Hunter's method of proximal ligature.' (DNB).