VERY RARE CIVIL WAR MEDICAL BOOK WITH ONLY THREE KNOWN TO EXIST!

Handbook of Surgical Operations, Smith, Stephen [1862] Handbook of Surgical Operations

On the front cover is a gold imprint “U.S. ARMY GENERAL HOSPITAL”

Inside the front cover are two identical black rubber stamp imprints,”U.S. ARMY GENERAL HOSPITAL, FREDERICK”

On the flyleaf is a pencil signature of a physician and a reverse rubber stamp imprint which appears to have be caused by the book being closed before one of the aforementioned imprints was dry.

This book is from the collection of the large army hospital in Frederick, Maryland. Dr. F Terry Hambrecht and Terry Reimer, have written a book about this hospital, “One Vast Hospital: The Civil War Hospital Sites in Frederick, Maryland after Antietam.” The book is available on Amazon.com.

The Handbook of Surgical Operations contains 274 pages not including the publisher’s book ads in the back (Bailliere Brothers, New York). Inside the book are over 200 woodcut engravings of Civil War era surgical operations and surgical instruments.

It is small (6 3/4″ x 4 1/2″) and was designed to be carried in a Civil War surgeon’s coat pocket. The book does not appear to have been used very much since the binding is tight but there may be some light blood stains on some of the pages. As is common in books this old there is chipping of the spine at both the top and bottom.

Tom Broadfoot lists a later edition [1863] without imprints in the last edition of his book, “Civil War Books: A Priced Checklist” for $1000. This checklist was printed in 2000 and there are no later editions.

The Library of Congress does not have this book. To my knowledge, only 3 are known to exist.