Trapham, Thomas | The first English book on tropical medicine

Trapham, Thomas 

A discourse of the state of health in the island of Jamaica. With a provision therefore calculated from the air, the place, and the water: the customs and manners of living, &c... London: R. Boulter, 1679

8vo (164 x 114mm). Crisp copy with the slightest of marginal stains to title, lacks endpapers. Contemporary ruled sheep; worn with upper cover exposed at fore edge.

First edition. Very rare. Trapham attended Magdalen College, Oxford, obtained his medical degree from the University of Caen in 1664, became an honorary fellow of the College of Physicians the same year, and left for Jamaica sometime after his marriage in 1667. Little else is known about Trapham, but he is supposed to have perished there in the earthquake of 1692. This work also includes an account of the yellow fever outbreak in Jamaica of 1671.

The Macclesfield copy of the first English book on tropical medicine

REFERENCE:

Wing T2030; Sabin 96473; Krivatsy 11952; Norman 2091

PROVENANCE:

The Library of the Earls of Macclesfield (Sotheby's London, March 13, 2008, part XI, lot 4266)