The author was Chief Veterinarian of the Sultan Mamluk of Egypt Nāṣir al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Qalāwūn. (reigned three times between 1293 and 1341). His work focuses on the treatment of horses and falcons. It is divided into ten “essays,” each of which is divided further into “chapters” discussing many equestrian-related subjects, such as the health of horses, breeding, and sports. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Probably the first psychiatric self-help book. Hunter and Macalpine call Mandeville's work "the first book on minor mental maladies `writ by way of Information to Patients' rather than `to teach other Practitioners' . . . [Mandeville] gave a graphic account of his own attack of melancholy when he developed the delusion that he had syphilis" (Hunter & Macalpine, p. 296). Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

"The letters B.C. ... signify that the preparation is part of an extensive collection purchased by the College from Sir Charles Bell...." Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

"This is the first volume to take a broad historical sweep of the close relation between medicines and poisons in the Western tradition, and their interconnectedness. They are like two ends of a spectrum, for the same natural material can be medicine or poison, depending on the dose, and poisons can be transformed into medicines, while medicines can turn out to be poisons. The book looks at important moments in the history of the relationship between poisons and medicines in European history, from Roman times, with the Greek physician Galen, through the Renaissance and the maverick physician Paracelsus, to the present, when poisons are actively being turned into beneficial medicines" (publisher).

Discovery of the Rheumatoid factor.

Barbato discovered the blood serum. Another version of these texts was published in Paris by Robert de Ninville in 1667. Priority of these editions is unknown. Digital facsimile of the Frankfurt version from Google Books at this link.

Brambilla was a personal physician to Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II and the first director of the Vienna hospital and the Josefinum school for military surgeons (now a medical museum). Brambilla provided a history of surgical instruments from antiquity to his own time. His work includes 67 plates illustrating over 600 surgical and dental instruments in their original size. Brambilla commissioned three sets of instruments corresponding to the plates in his book. These instrument sets are preserved at the Museo Gaileo, at Vienna, and at the University of Pavia museum. Digital facsimile from the Bayerische StaatsBibliothek at this link.

A physiologist and anthropologist, Edwards established the subject of ethnology in France and pioneered the concept of “race” as determined by the shape of the face and head. He has been called the first anthropologist to discuss race. He founded the Société Ethnologique de Paris in 1839. Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

Cushing introduced the use of silver clips in neurosurgery to control bleeding.

The diagnostic value for neurosurgery of changes in the optic nerve caused by increased intracranial pressure.

Expanded from a "small" edition issued in 1873 at the request of the Conservator of Forests, British Burma to "answer the purpose of a guide for the management of those animals, in a more direct and complete form; and also to gather, from the records available, the cause of the high rate of mortality among the Government elephants in Burma" (Preface).

 The first quantitative study of leprosy in India. Leprosy first appeared in India at least 2,000 years ago and continued to exist throughout the subcontinent over the succeeding centuries. Upon the establishment of the Indian Raj in 1858, the colonial authorities began to assume a more professional and scientific attitude towards public health. The severity and geographic distribution of leprosy in India was unknown until it was surveyed in the British Indian Census of 1872, the statistics of which prominently feature in this report. Includes two chromolithographed disease maps. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

The first American book with chromolithographed illustrations printed in America. The chromolithographed images depict American medicinal plants. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

"Composed between 1209 and 1226, the first of the two primary texts discusses human generation — anatomy, physiology, astrology, sexual behavior, conception and the health of the fetus. The second part, the Physiognomy proper, goes head to toe, to determine a person’s character, vices and virtues by interpreting body parts. It draws on Aristotle and Rhazes and was translated into Spanish, Italian, French, German and Polish. The short tracts are on urology, dreams and the differences between genera and species of animals. This last flows from Michael’s translations of Averroës’ De animalibus, of parallel writings by Aristotle and of the Abbreviatio de animalibus of ibn Sina. This collection of texts influenced, i.a., Thos. Hill’s Contemplation of Mankinde (1571, etc.) and Aristotle’s Masterpiece" (McKittrick Rare Books, Medicine 1477-1755).

ISTC No. im00551000. Digital facsimile from the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek at this link.

The first pocket reference for travelers by land or sea, dealing with topics such as infected genitalia, frostbite, fouled drinking water, shipboard stench, the best boots and shoes. The recipes in this work comprised an essential medical kit for soldiers, sailors, merchants, diplomats and pilgrims. Includes an early description of snow blindness and a recommended treatment. It was issued three times in 1557.  

A plan for a state-funded public health system and poor relief program. An emblem introduces each of the ten essays, which treat hospital sanitation and kitchen gardens, care of disabled veterans, prisoners and the indigent, housing for the working poor and government subsidized textile and tapestry manufacture to employ the homeless. Digital text from cervantesvirtual.com at this link.

In this short treatise on balneotherapy physician, humanist , and prolific writer Georg Pictorius described 38 different bathing facilities. Digital facsimile from Bayerische StaatsBibliothek at this link

Taylor was the leading English toxicologist and medical witness of his time, and his works were revised, edited, and translated into other languages. He "performed an invaluable service in codifying legal precedents and rulings and relevant anatomical and chemical data. He was known to a wider public by his appearance as a witness for the prosecution in celebrated murder trials, including those of Drory, and the poisoners Tawell, Palmer (who first exploited the possibilities offered by life insurance policies), Smethurst and Catherine Wilson. He was a commanding figure in the witness box, unbending and relentless" (munksroll.rclondon.uk) Extensively revised second edition 1859, further extensively revised edition 1875. Digital facsimile of the first U.S. edition (1848) from Google Books at this link.

The first general treatise on occupational medicine published in the United States. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

The first two editions of De honesta voluptate et valetudine, the first printed work on cookery, diet, and health, by Italian humanist and papal librarian Bartholomeo Platina (Sacchi) appeared at roughly the same time. One was issued in Venice by Laurentius de Aquila and Sibylinus Umber on June 13, 1475. (ISTC No.: ip00762000). Another edition, which is sometimes called the first, might be slightly earlier or later. Neither the place, nor the printer, nor the date of printing is identified on that edition, but the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue No.: ip00761000 assigns the work to Ultrich Han of Rome between the years 1475 and 1479. 

Platina credited the origin of most of the recipes in this work to the professional chef Maestro Martino of Como.

A cookbook with recipes to restore the health of convalescents.

Includes Harner's "The Role of Hallucinogenic Plants in European Witchcraft".

McWilliam included a history of yellow fever, pathology, description of symptoms, sequences, causes, treatment. He also described the state of medicine among the Africans. He specifically described the ventilation of the ships, which was carried out on the plan adopted by David Boswell Reid for the houses of parliament, and an abstract of meteorological observations, and a brief account of the geology of the Niger, condensed from the notes of William Stanger. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Published under the pseudonym, Wilhelm Nero Pilate Barbellion. "Cummings' life changed forever when he was called to enlist in the British Army to fight in World War I in November 1915. He had consulted his doctor before taking the regulation medical prior to enlisting, and his doctor had given him a sealed, confidential letter to present to the medical officer at the recruitment centre.^[3] Cummings did not know what was contained in the letter, but in the event it was not needed; the medical officer rejected Cummings as unfit for active duty after the most cursory of medical examinations.^[3] Hurt, Cummings decided to open the letter on his way back home to see what had been inside, and was staggered to learn that his doctor had diagnosed him as suffering from the disease now known as multiple sclerosis, and that he almost certainly had less than five years to live....

"The strong early sales and the admiration received by The Journal of a Disappointed Man are largely forgotten by the wider reading public today, but the book has been frequently reprinted in paperback and is regarded as a classic of English literature.^[6]It has been likened to the best work of other writers like Franz Kafka^[7] and James Joyce.^[8]

"It is also much admired by many sufferers of multiple sclerosis as a frank and eloquent portrayal of their struggle, and numerous MS societies and charities have recommended or even published copies of the book to encourage greater understanding among sufferers and non-sufferers alike" (Wikipedia article on W.N.P. Barbellion, accessed 3-2019).

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

http://vertpaleo.org/Publications/Bibliography-of-Fossil-Vertebrates.aspx

"The Bibliography of Fossil Vertebrates (BFV) aimed to index the world literature of vertebrate paleontology. Although no compilation can ever be complete, the BFV attempted to include every published scientific work that mentioned vertebrate fossils. In addition, it included works that dealt with closely related subjects such as evolutionary theory, geology, and the history of science, where relevant. Articles from newspapers and popular magazines were not included; nevertheless, the total number of references to books and published articles is in the neighborhood of 200,000.  The bibliographies indexed literature by taxonomy, geologic age, geography and subject areas, although the indexing changed over the years. The contents of those bibliographies have been converted to a database that can be searched using subject and taxonomic indexes, covering the literature from 1509-1993.
 

"The Bibliography of Fossil Vertebrates was compiled and published as a series of volumes, beginning with the 1928-1933 Camp, et al., volume published in 1940 (see below). However, this volume continued the work begun by O. P. Hay and his colleagues, who had published two previous retrospective volumes covering the literature of North American vertebrate paleontology, in 1902 and 1929. The Camp volumes were published by the Geological Society of America. In 1962, A. S. Romer, et al. (see below) compiled a massive bibliography to complement the Hay volumes, covering the non-North American published literature up to the point when the BFV series proper was begun.
 

"In the early 1970s, the BFV indexing was done under a cooperative agreement by the SVP, the American Geological Institute (AGI) and the University of California Museum of Paleontology, under the supervision of J. T. Gregory, and the references incorporated into AGI's GeoRef.
 

"Publication of the series resumed in 1983, with a compilation of the AGI references in the 1973-1977, 1978 and 1979 volumes. The 1980-1993 volumes were supported by the SVP and the University of California Museum of Paleontology. The increasing indexing of vertebrate paleontological literature in computerized indexes, and the increasing costs of indexing caused the SVP to cease publication of the BFV in 1996. A demonstration project of the BFV Online, created by John Damuth in 1994, proved successful, and the SVP supported its expansion. A grant from the Dinosaur Society permitted keystroking of the references from the older printed volumes, which have been added to the database." (http://vertpaleo.org/Publications/Bibliography-of-Fossil-Vertebrates.aspx).

Individual volumes were published as follows, after which annual volumes appeared through 1993:

Hay, O. P. 1902. Bibliography and Catalogue of Fossil Vertebrata of North America. U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 179, 868 pp.
Hay, O. P. 1929. Second Bibliography and Catalogue of Fossil Vertebrata of North America. Carnegie Institute of Washington, Publication no. 390, vol. 1, 916 pp.
Romer, A. S., N. E. Wright, T. Edinger and R. van Frank (eds). 1962. Bibliography of Fossil Vertebrates Exclusive of North America. The Geological Scoiety of America, GSA Memoir 87.
Camp, C. L. and V. L. Vanderhoof (eds). 1940. Bibliography of Fossil Vertebrates 1928-1933. The Geological Society of America, GSA Special Paper 27.
Camp, C. L., D. N. Taylor and S. P. Welles (eds). 1942. Bibliography of Fossil Vertebrates 1934-1938. The Geological Society of America, GSA Special Paper 42.
Camp, C. L., S. P. Welles, M. Green (eds). 1949. Bibliography of Fossil Vertebrates 1939-1943. The Geological Society of America, GSA Memoir 37.
Camp, C. L., S. P. Welles, M. Green (eds). 1953. Bibliography of Fossil Vertebrates 1944-1948. The Geological Society of America, GSA Memoir 57.
Camp, C. L. and H. J. Allison (eds). 1961. Bibliography of Fossil Vertebrates 1949-1953. The Geological Society of America, GSA Memoir 84.
Camp, C. L., H. J. Allison and R. H. Nichols (eds). 1964. Bibliography of Fossil Vertebrates 1954-1958. The Geological Society of America, GSA Memoir 92.
Camp, C. L., H. J. Allison, R. H. Nichols and H. McGinnis  (eds). 1968. Bibliography of Fossil Vertebrates 1959-1963. The Geological Society of America, GSA Memoir 117.
Camp, C. L., R. H. Nichols, B. Brajnikov, E. Fulton and J. A. Bacskai (eds). 1972. Bibliography of Fossil Vertebrates 1964-1968. The Geological Society of America, GSA Memoir 134.
Gregory, J. T., J. A. Bacskai, B. Brajnikov and K. Munthe (eds). 1973. Bibliography of Fossil Vertebrates 1969-1972. The Geological Society of America, GSA Memoir 141.

Of particular note for the greatly expanded second edition published in 1826. That edition contained 150 pages compared to 72 pages in the first edition. The second edition also contained 13 plates derived from images collected by Jean Esquirol, but published more than a decade before Esquirol published related images.

Digital facsimile of the 1825 edition from Google Books at this link. Digital facsimile of the 1826 edition from the Internet Archive at this link.

The first book on pediatric odontology, later called pedodontics. English translation, New York, 1841.

The first American book on neurology, with a lengthy discussion of neuropathology. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Perhaps the oldest separate work on the psychological development of children, written five years after Grohmann published a work on the education of children. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Digital facsimile from Bayerische StaatsBibliothek at this link.

The first book on child neurology. Unusual for a medical book of this type, it includes a lithographed frontispiece, a lithographed title page, and four hand-colored plates.

The earliest book devoted entirely to the health and illness of Jews, written by a Jewish physician. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Thomson issued this introductory work shortly before publication of his New Guide. Three issues appeared in 1822: one with 180 pages, another with 182 pages including testimonials, and a 204 page issue with the introduction to the New Guide included. Digital facsimile of the 1825 second edition from U.S. National Library of Medicine at this link.

Finely illustrated and annotated catalogue including objects and rare books and manuscripts collected by Le Roy Crummer, Lewis Stephen Pilcher, and Campbell Bonner. Until publication of this catalogue material in the Crummer and Pilcher collections in particular was little known. 

The exhibition catalogue was available online at https://exhibitions.kelsey.lsa.umich.edu/art-science-healing/index.php.

A study of Graeco-Roman popular medicine and superstition based upon the examination of hundreds of engraved gemsntones that were thought to contain magical and medicinal properties. Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

The following works were issued separately and added as appendices to later editions: El libro de los venenos (1990), Para una fenomenología de las drogas (1992) and Aprendiendo de las drogas (1995).  English translation by G. W. Robinette with revisions as The general history of drugs, Volume one (Valparaiso, Chile: Graffiti Militante Press, 2010).

Catalogue of the thousands of plants which were cultivated in the East India Company’s Royal Botanical Garden in Shibpur (near Calcutta, founded in 1786) and ‘Dr. William Carey’s’ botanical garden in Serampore, Bengal (established in 1800), which were considered to be by far and away the most important institutions of their kind in all Asia, if not the tropical world. The gardens conducted pioneering studies into rare and exotic plants, as well and important experiments in economic and medical botany. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

A 14-page pamphlet on epidemiology published by the  Żydowska Samopomoc Społeczna, Prezydium (Jewish Social Self-Help Organization) in the Kraków Ghetto to educate Jewish activists and physicians. The author perished at Belzec concentration camp in 1942.

Explores the films and radio and television broadcasts developed by twentieth-century birth control advocates to promote family planning at home in the United States, and in the expanding international arena of population control.

Gero Hütter and co-authors reported the first long-term remission or "cure" of HIV/AIDS in a human. The patient, Timothy Ray Brown also known as "The Berlin Patient" also suffered from myeloid leukemia and underwent stem-cell transplanation (bone marrow transplant) as treatment for his leukemia. The stem-cell donor lacked the CCR5 HIV virus receptor on his cells. When these cells were transplanted into the "The Berlin Patient" the donor's cells totally replaced the patient's bone marrow cells with cells that lacked the CCR5 HIV virus receptor and made the recipient "immune" to HIV. Thus "The Berlin Patient" was "cured" of both AIDS and leukemia. Digital edition of this paper from nejm.org at this link.

The first replication of cure of HIV/AIDS by this method was accomplished 10 years later in March 2019 by a team lead by Ravindra Gupta: "HIV-1 remission following CCR5Δ32/Δ32 haematopoietic stem-cell transplantation," Nature, 568, 244–248 (2019).

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this addition to the bibliography.)

Using the viral genome isolated from the archival serum of the "Kinshasa patient", Lemey, Faria and colleagues deduced that the prototype African viral strain first crossed from monkeys to humans about 1920 in the area of Kinshasa in Africa. This was about forty years before it was first detected in a stored human blood sample collected in 1959 from a hospitalized patient it in Kinshasa. Order of authorship in the original publication was Faria, Rambaut, Suchard...Lemey.

Full text and images from PubMedCentral at this link.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)

By genetic analysis of HIV, Worobey, Lemey and colleagues from the social sciences "cleared" Gaëtan Dugas, a Canadian air steward, who previously had been identified by name as Patient Zero--the source of the epidemic. Unfortunately Dugas was cleared of his responsibility only after his death. One lesson that researchers drew from this was not to identify patients by name in contexts like this. Full text available from PubMedCentral at this link. Order of authorship in the original publication was Worobey, Watts, McKay...Lemey....

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)

Zammit discovered that contaminated goat milk was the vector for transmission to humans of the Malta fever bacterium, Brucellosis melitensis. At the time goat milk was a primary source of milk in Malta and other parts of the world. Zammit's campaign to Pasteurize goat milk led to eradication of the disease in Malta and other parts of the world.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference.)

The first publication on Lyme Disease. Abstract from the Proceedings of the 40th Annual Scientific Session of the American Rheumatism Association. Order of authorship in the original paper was Steere, Malawista, Snydman....

Expanded in Steere, Malawista et al, "Erythema chronicum migrans and Lyme arthritis: The enlarging clinical spectrum," Ann. Int. Med., 86 (1977) 685-698.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference.)

Discovery of the agent causing Lyme disease. Though the authors initially thought the disease might be a spirochetosis, the agent was attributed to a bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, named for Burgdorfer who discovered the bacterium. Order of authorship in the original publication was Burgdorfer, Barbour, Hayes....

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference.)

The authors showed that a tick was the insect vector for Lyme disease. The tick (the "Deer Tick") is named lxodes dammini. Order of authorship in the original paper was Steere, Broderick, and Malawista.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference.)

In this paper Fleming first described the use of penicillin as an antibacterial agent in man, and reported on experiments using it as a wound dressing for septic wounds. He also corrected the species name from Penicillium rubrum (1929) to Penicillium notatum.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)

Polymerase chain reaction first published. With Randall K. Saiki, Stephen Scharf, Fred Faloona et al. Order of authorship in the original paper was Saiki, Scharf, Faloona, Mullis....

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference.)

Villemin coined the term antibiosis and advanced the term from an evolutionary viewpoint. Though he presented the concept Villemin did not apply this concept to fight disease.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference.)

Lewis made the critical connection/association of the worm, Filaria sanguinis,(Wuchereria bancrofti ) to Elephantiasis. This brief account appears to be a third person account summarizing Lewis's work written by an editor of the Indian Medical Gazette. Digital facsimile from PubMedCentral at this link.

Lewis published a formal paper in Lancet: "Filaria sanguinis hominis (mature form), found in a blood clot in Naevoid Elephantiasis of the scrotum," Lancet, II (1877) 453-455.

(Thanks for Juan Weiss for these references.)

HIV-2 was discovered essentially simultaneously by French and U.S. teams. This was the first publication by the French team. Order of authorship of the original publication was Clavel, Guettard, Brun-Vezinet.  See their expanded report: Clavel, F., Mansinho, K. Chamaret, S.,et al with Montagnier, Luc. "Human immunodeficiency virus type 2 infection associated with AIDS in West Africa," New Eng. J. Med. 316 (1987) 1180-1185.

First report of the discovery of what became known as HIV-2 by the U.S. research group led by Kanki. This group published before the French group, but the French group had reported their data one day prior to the U.S. team. Order of authorship in the original publication was Barin, M'Boup, F. Denis, Kanki....

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Cannon, sister of Walter Bradford Cannon, established medical social work as an accepted subspecialty of social work first at Massachusetts General Hospital, and eventually throughout the U.S. Her career was closely associated with the development of medical social work that combined the skills of the nurse, the social worker, the social investigator, and the psychologist. Cannon began training medical social workers at Mass General in 1912. In Social Work in Hospitals (1913), she claimed that the diagnostic casework of the social worker was as important for treatment as was the clinical diagnosis of the doctor. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

The first edition extended to more than 1000 pages. It had reached its 16th edition by 2016. Digital facsimile of the New York 1912 edition from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile of the 1900 edition from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Stevenson was chief surgeon at the Confederate States Military Prison Hospitals in Andersonville, Georgia. The appendix lists the causes of death of 12,912 men.

"Andersonville Prison, established in Georgia early in 1864 to relieve the congestion in the capital and ease the supply problem, soon became the scene of sickness and death of an almost unbelievable scale. The inadequate facilities, the difficulties in procuring supplies and equipment, and the increasing poverty of the Confederacy were the principal factors that go to explain the frightful conditions that existed at Andersonville. Surgeon R. Randolph Stevenson, medical officer in charge, was appraised by one of his colleagues as a 'poor medical man & no surgeon, but an energetic officer in trying to provide for the wants and comforts of the sick under his charge--but without the means afforded him here to accomplish his desires" (Cunningham, Doctors in Gray, 103.)

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.