TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY,

Book

18th Century Medicine in Philadelphia

Name/Title

Description

Philadelphia: Printed by Budd & Bartram, for Thomas Dobson, 1802. The fifth volume in the initial series of the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society (APS), the oldest learned society in the United States. The first volume of the Transactions, published in February 1771, had been met with critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic, but publication did not resume until after the American Revolution. As historian Raymond Phineas Stearns points out, the "Transactions served to announce to Europeans a new stage of maturity in American science. The volume of activity was impressive and the quality of the work compared favorably, in considerable part at least, with that of Europeans." Published in 1802, the present volume of Transactions, the fifth in the series, was issued at a time when Thomas Jefferson was serving as both president of the APS (a post which he held from 1797 to 1814) and president of the United States. It is therefore particularly interesting to consider the ways in which this volume of the Transactions reflects what historian Patrick Spero describes as the overlapping agendas of the APS and Jefferson's presidential administration. Such convergences are particularly evident in the printed circular sent out the previous year, the text of which is reprinted here. The circular solicited communications on behalf of an APS committee tasked with "collect[ing] information respecting the past and present state of this country." Priority was to be given to the following projects: "procur[ing] one or more entire skeletons of the Mammoth, and of such other unknown animals.discovered in America"; "obtain[ing] accurate plans, drawing and descriptions of...ancient Fortifications, Tumuli, and other Indian works of art"; "researches into the Natural History of the Earth, the changes it has undergone as to Mountains, Lakes, Rivers, Prairies, &c"; and inquiries "into the Customs, Manners, Languages and Character of the Indian nations, ancient and modern, and their migrations." Interestingly, each of these projects was either of personal interest to Jefferson himself, a priority of his administration, or both. This issue of the Transactions contains numerous pieces by Joseph Priestley on his continuing chemical experiments, expanded work on the honeybee by Benjamin Smith Barton, western scientific data collected by Andrew Ellicott, Charles Willson Peale's fireplace proposal, and Thomas Coulter on peach trees. Of particular note are the contributions of Andrew Ellicott. A mathematician, astronomer, and surveyor, Ellicott had established his reputation surveying the Mason-Dixon Line and the District of Columbia, the nation's new capital city. In 1796, Ellicott was appointed by President Washington to survey the boundary between the United States and Spanish territory in West Florida, as called for in the terms of Pinckney's Treaty. His communications, published here as numbers XX and XXI, together with the eight plates that accompany them, would appear again the following year in nearly identical form as the 151-page appendix to The Journal of Andrew Ellicott.... (Philadelphia, 1803), published under the same imprint as this volume of the Transactions. Clark describes the appendix as "a record of meteorological, astronomical, and chronometrical observations from the mouth of the Ohio (late 1796) down the Mississippi, and along the boundary and Gulf Coast to the mouth of St. Marys (early 1800)," noting that it "also lists and describes the instruments used in running the line." The publication of this data in the Transactions predates, therefore, its appearance in Ellicott's Journal. Referring to Ellicott's Journal, Howes notes that it was the "[f]irst thorough American survey of the lower Mississippi and Gulf regions" and Streeter writes that Ellicott's report "influenced the eventual U.S. acquisition of the area," referring, of course, to the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Ellicott was one of several APS members who would go on to help prepare Lewis and Clark for their expedition, training Lewis in astronomical observation and surveying techniques. The eight plates accompanying Ellicott's observations were engraved by Alexander Lawson and Benjamin Jones. The present volume contains eleven plates, ten of them folding, plus two folding maps. One map is of the Mississippi River and the other is of North America and the Atlantic Ocean, showing the Gulf Stream. Among the plates are those illustrating the clupea tyrannus (the Atlantic menhaden) and oniscus pragustator ("fish louse") described by architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe, Burgiss Allison's globe time-piece and pendant planetarium, and Peale's proposed fireplace improvements. A particularly fine copy, untrimmed and in original publisher's boards, bearing the ex-library stamps of both the Carnegie Instituiton's Solar Observatory in Washington, D.C., and the Royal Astronomical Library. An important record of some of the earliest scientific contributions of the newly United States. SABIN 1181. SHAW & SHOEMAKER 1755. MEISEL, AMERICAN NATURAL HISTORY II, p.9. SOWERBY 3753. WALSH, MAPS CONTAINED IN PUBLICATIONS OF THE AMERICAN BIBLIOGRAPHY S-01755. SERVIES 754. SERVIES 768 (ref). CLARK II:89 (ref). STREETER 1531 (ref). HOWES E94 (ref). Raymond Phineas Stearns, Science in the British Colonies of America (Urbana, 1970), p.674. Patrick Spero, "The Other Presidency: Thomas Jefferson and the American Philosophical Society" in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 162, no. 4 December 2018): p.347. On Jefferson's scientific interests, see Keith Thomson, Jefferson's Shadow: The Story of His Science (New Haven. 2012). John C. Greene, American Science in the Age of Jefferson (Ames, Iowa. 1984), pp. 134-44. ANB 7, pp.415-6.

Other Names and Numbers

Other Numbers

Number Type

References

Other Number

SABIN 1181. SHAW & SHOEMAKER 1755. MEISEL, AMERICAN NATURAL HISTORY II, p.9. SOWERBY 3753. WALSH, MAPS CONTAINED IN PUBLICATIONS OF THE AMERICAN BIBLIOGRAPHY S-01755. SERVIES 754. SERVIES 768 (ref). CLARK II:89 (ref). STREETER 1531 (ref). HOWES E94 (ref). Raymond Phineas Stearns, Science in the British Colonies of America (Urbana, 1970), p.674. Patrick Spero, "The Other Presidency: Thomas Jefferson and the American Philosophical Society" in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 162, no. 4 December 2018): p.347. On Jefferson's scientific interests, see Keith Thomson, Jefferson's Shadow: The Story of His Science (New Haven. 2012). John C. Greene, American Science in the Age of Jefferson (Ames, Iowa. 1984), pp. 134-44. ANB 7, pp.415-6.

Condition

Overall Condition

Very Good

Date Examined

Sep 28, 2023

Notes

xxiii,328pp., plus eleven plates (ten folding) and two folding maps. Quarto. Original publisher's paper-covered boards, rebacked with paper in matching style, printed paper label, raised bands. Boards slightly worn. Embossed stamp of the Solar Observatory of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C., to front free endpaper and front flyleaf. Ink stamps of the Royal Astronomical Observatory to title page and p.328. Occasional light foxing and tanning, some offsetting to plates. Very good. Untrimmed and partially unopened.