(Texas) — Smith, Ashbel | Evidently one of just two copies cited in the Anglo-American auction records for over a century

Property from the Texana Collection of Howard Wilcox

(Texas) — Smith, Ashbel 

An Account of the Yellow Fever which Appeared in the City of Galveston, Republic of Texas, in the Autumn of 1839, with Cases and Dissections. Galveston: Hamilton Stuart; Houston: Cruger & Moore; Austin: J. W. Cruger, 1839

8vo in 4s (178 x 108 mm). Errata leaf at end; small loss to lower right corner of errata leaf, H1v–H2r foxed and soiled, quire I browned. Modern polished calf, gilt dentelles, red morocco spine label.

First edition of the second medical text printed in Texas. Scourge of the South. Surgeon general and secretary of state of the Republic of Texas, Ashbel Smith (1805–1886) received his medical degree from Yale and further trained in Paris during an epidemic of Asiatic cholera. In 1837 he went to Texas to assume the post of surgeon general of the new republic. Enchanted by politics, Smith served as a commissioner to the Comanche people, as well as Texas minister to England France. "Smith seldom practiced medicine but was active in early efforts to professionalize medical practice in the state. He was one of the founders in 1848 of the Medical and Surgical Society of Galveston, one of the first professional organizations in Texas, and played a prominent role in organizing the Texas Medical Association in 1853" (Moneyhon, in American National Biography).

Next to New Orleans, Galveston was the city in the South the most frequently plagued by episodes of yellow fever. It came to the Gulf coast port from Mexico, Central America, and Cuba, usually making its appearance in June or July and lasting until the first frost appeared. To prove that yellow fever was not contagious, Smith boldly tasted the black vomit of dying victims. All he proved was that the virus was not transmitted by the expulsions of body fluids. Like Benjamin Rush, Smith failed to recognize that mosquitoes were the carriers of the deadly virus, a fact that would not be discovered for nearly a century. Until then, outbreaks of yellow fever continued in Galveston, and the city suffered its "Year of Crucifixion" in 1867 when nearly ten percent of its population succumbed to the disease.

Rare: Apart from a defective and disbound copy sold at Swann in 1980, this appears to be the only copy cited in the Anglo-American book auction records for more than a century.

REFERENCE:

Sabin 82341; Streeter, Texas 334; not in Norman

PROVENANCE:

"The Texas Independence Collection" (Sotheby's New York, 18 June 2004, lot 48)