NEILL, Hugh. ~ The practice in the Liverpool Ophthalmic Infirmary, in the year 1834; being the first special report... [Liverpool: D. Marples & Co.] for W. Grapel in Liverpool and Longman, Rees, Orme, and Co. in London, 1835.
8vo (220 × 135 mm.), pp. iv, 55, [1], plus folding letterpress statistical table for cases in 1834 and lithographed frontispiece (depicting cross-sections of the eye). Original publisher’s cloth, blue paper label to upper cover. Light damspstaining to covers, spine slightly chipped. Contemporary inscription of “John Deighton, Ellesmere” to title together with his initial “D” which also appears in ink on the upper cover, 3 small manuscript notes by Deighton to rear binder’s blank. A good copy.
First edition. Though entitled “the first special report”, no further issues of the series were produced. The work includes an interesting collection of cases of named individuals (“William Ablett, aged 9, at play, ran a fork through the Cornea of the right eye, and punctured the Lens... James Greenow, 20 years of age, of Little Woolton, had the stalk of a tobacco pipe thrust through the Cornea” etc) and gives a peculiarly detailed insight into this aspect of public health in the Victorian industrial city. Neill was an enthusiastic advocate of the use of strychnine in opthalmology. This copy of the Special Report evidently belonged to one of his doctors, who made several small notes at the end of his part in a few of the treatments described in the text.