History of a Successful Case of Amputation at the Hip-Joint, (the Limb 48 inches in Circumference, 99 pounds weight).

John Churchill and Sons. London. 1865. 4to.. pp. xiii, (iii), 31, (i). 4 albumen print photographs [ 2 by SARONY of the patient, signed in the negative, 2 by PIERRE-PETIT, of the tumour ], one engraved plate by PATERSON, one text figure. Original cloth over bevelled boards, all edges gilt, two small snags at the top edge of the front cover, a tiny indent in the fore-edge margin of the last few leaves, half-title and final leaf a little foxed where facing the end-papers and very slight marginal foxing elsewhere, overall a very good copy. *JOSEPH SAMPSON GAMGEE, MRCS, FRSE (17 April 1828, Livorno, Italy – 18 September 1886) surgeon at the Queen's Hospital (later the General Hospital) in Birmingham, a pioneer of aseptic surgery (having once shared lodgings with Joseph Lister), and, in 1880 invented Gamgee Tissue, an absorbent cotton wool and gauze surgical dressing. He was a surgeon in the Crimea, returning to England in 1857 and taking the post of surgeon in Birmingham. He wrote on fractures and clinical surgery, pathological anatomy and ovariotomy. The above work is the account of his operation to remove the severely tumourous right leg of a coal-miner, originally injured in a rock-fall some eleven years prior to operation. In that period he had continued working in the mine, the tumour growing steadily, until it was so disabling that he had to give up his work as a miner and take on the job of farm labourer. The disability eventually became so intense that his earnings became perilously low and suffering from malnutrition, he sought surgical help. Gamgee describes the surgery in some detail; chloroform was administered and the operation went well. He details the after-care, the patient recovering fully, the photograph appended having been taken five months later. NOT listed in GERNSHEIM Incunabula of British Photographic Literature 1839-1875. COPAC lists nine locations, despite which there are no copies in most of the great personal collections such as Osler - Waller - Cushing - Orr - Reynolds - Lilly etc.