Gunns Domestic Medicine, Pumpkintown 1839

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Jul 18, 2015 - Jul 19, 2015

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• Lot Description
  Gunn's Domestic Medicine or Poor Man's Friend, Pumpkintown, Tennessee edition, published in 1839, Eighth edition (only edition published in Pumpkintown), 635 pages. 8 1/2" H x 5" W. Note: Pumpkintown, TN is no longer in existence but was originally located in McMinn County, TN near present day Athens, TN. The name was a corruption of the existing Cherokee Native American village a corruption of "Potemkin town". History (Courtesy of Ben Harris McClary via http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/): This popular home medical guide by Dr. John C. Gunn (ca. 1795-1863) was first published in Knoxville in 1830. A proliferation of editions in Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York soon followed. Enlarged under the author's supervision in 1857 and translated into German, the book remained Gunn's original basic text on through the National Jubilee Edition, the 160th, in 1876, down to the last recorded edition, the 234th, issued in New York in 1920. Designed to serve as a guide for frontier and rural families who lived great distances from even primitive medical care, the book covered virtually any possible miscarriage of health. It contained extensive references from the works of the major medical men and journals of the time, making it also a useful textbook for largely self-taught doctors in all rural areas. The emphasis in the early editions on the use of herbs most readily available in East Tennessee indicates that initially Dr. Gunn did not expect his book to have the far-ranging influence it ultimately experienced. A sense of the volume's impact is suggested by its literary use in such diverse places and times as the Mississippi River in 1884 (Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn) and California in 1952 (John Steinbeck's East of Eden).

  Condition

  Text in very good condition rebound in cloth with 1/4 leather spine(probably 1900+/-). Minor wear to hard cover and minor losses to edge of spine. First line of index page torn away/missing. Interior with expected foxing of pages.
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