Dewees, Physical and Medical Treatment of Children, 1825 (with provenance)
A Treatise on the Physical and Medical Treatment of Children. By William P. Dewees, M. D. Member of the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, and of the Philadelphia Medical Society; Lecturer on Midwifery, &c. Philadelphia: H. C. Carey & I. Lea, Chesnut Street. 1825.
Octavo in original full brown leather. Black label with gold text on spine. Leather scuffed and stained, and chipped at head of spine. Book plate on front paste down (“ex libris Frederic N. Silverman M.D.”). Stamped “B F. Morgan. MD” on ffep and dedication leaf. Ink owner’s inscription in an early hand (illegible) on first blank, partially torn at corner. Variably toned and foxed, as well as some stains mostly affecting leaves near front and rear.
xxiv, 496.
G-M 6331. William Potts Dewees (1768-1841). The first American textbook on pediatrics. Dewees also published the first American textbook on gynecology the following year.
According to his obituary, Frederic N Silverman M.D. was a junior associate of John Caffey, M.D. (of Shaken Baby Syndrome fame). The two were founding physicians of pediatric radiology. Silverman “was proud to be a charter member of the Society for Pediatric Radiology and served as the second president. He was an organizing advisor and a regular participant in the European Society of Pediatric Radiology and a founding member of the Caffey Society. One of his most significant contributions was the radiologic identification of child abuse. His landmark article “The roentgen manifestations of unrecognized skeletal trauma in infants,” published in AJR in 1953, defined inflicted trauma as the etiology of the entity now known as child abuse. His subsequent landmark article on the battered child, published in JAMA in 1962 and coauthored with C. Henry Kempe, M.D., increased physician awareness of child abuse and emphasized the critical role of diagnostic radiology for early detection. Child abuse is still known as the Silverman syndrome in France.”
