ADDISON, THOMAS. 1793-1860.


On the Constitutional and Local Effects of Disease on the Supra-Renal Capsules. London: Samuel Highley, 1855. Large 4to (327 x 254 mm). 11 hand-colored lithographed plates. Publisher's green cloth with gilt stamped upper cover, rebacked retaining original cloth. Corners bumped, erased library stamps, free front endpaper loose and held in place with tape.Provenance: Logan Clendening (bookplate); University of Kansas (bookplate on back paste-down). FIRST EDITION. "Addison was the first to realize the importance of the adrenal in clinical medicine" (Garrison-Morton). This study first appeared in a shorter version in the London Medical Gazette (1849), but was expanded for this first edition in book form. It describes the condition which later became known as "Addison's disease." Addison stumbled upon adrenal disease while trying to find the cause of pernicious anemia, and was the first to suggest that the adrenal glands were essential for life. Garrison-Morton 3864; Heirs of Hippocrates 1502; Norman 8; Osler 1744; Waller 225