FOTHERGILL, JOHN. 1712-1780.


"Case of an Angina Pectoris, With Remarks" and "Farther Account of the Angina Pectoris." In Medical Observations and Inquiries by a Society of Physicians in London, volume 5. London: T. Caddell, 1776. 8vo (203 x 228 mm). 7 folding plates (none related to Fothergill's entries). Contemporary calf, spine gilt. Joints cracked, browning, ownership inscription on title dated 1796.Provenance: Francis Rigby Broadbelt, M.D. (1746-1795), Scottish physician (bookplate)."Fothergill's observations on the disease were highly original and of considerable significance, for he was the first physician to suspect on clinical grounds that the heart might be affected in this condition, and he was the first to record abnormalities of the myocardium and coronary arteries of patients who died suddenly with this disease ... [Fothergill's second paper] contains the first description of calcification of the coronary arteries in a patient suffering from angina pectoris" C. Booth, "Dr. John Fothergill and the angina pectoris" in Medical History, volume 1 (1957). In his second paper Fothergill includes the post-mortem findings of his patient recorded by John Hunter who performed the autopsy. Hunter reported that the heart's "substance was paler than common, more of a ligamentous consistence, and in many parts of the left ventricle it was become almost white and hard.... The two coronary arteries, from their origin to many of their ramifications upon the heart, were become one piece of bone." Dr. Francis Rigby Broadbelt, whose bookplate appears on the front paste-down, died in 1795, but an ownership inscription of the same name appears on the title page with the date 1796. This can be explained as the signature of his son, Francis Rigby Broadbelt, Jr. Bedford 607.