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TOWNSEND, George Alfred : CAMPAIGNS OF A NON-COMBATANT AND HIS ROMAUNT ABROAD DURING THE WAR

TOWNSEND, George Alfred. CAMPAIGNS OF A NON-COMBATANT AND HIS ROMAUNT ABROAD DURING THE WAR. New York: Blelock & Company, 1866. First edition. Townsend (American, 1841 - 1914) writes about his experiences as a war correspondent during the American Civil War and of his two year journey in Europe during the war. 12mo. 368 pp. Publisher's green cloth over beveled boards, gilt-stamped title to spine and publisher's monogram to upper board, brown coated endpapers. Pencil signature of Dr. H. O. Marcy on first blank, and a bookplate (of W. S. Greenough) to front pastedown. Binding shows moderate, all-over soiling, as well as being worn at crown and corners, with top joint starting. Text leaves are clean; but the bookblock is over-opened near the end and one signature is partially sprung. Offered as is, because of the condition, but with an interesting association. We are assuming that the pencil ownership of Dr. H. O. Marcy is that of Henry Orlando Marcy (1837-1924), a surgeon in the Massachusetts militia during various campaigns of the Civil War, especially at the siege of Charleston. In the last year of the war he was appointed medical director of Florida. "His work was characterized by common sense, for he did much to prevent dysentery among the troops by supplying them with fresh and well-cooked food, and at Charleston, his house-to-house cleaning, with a force of five hundred men, made a sanitary city out of one that was pest-ridden." (D.A.B., vol. VI.) After the war, Marcy became the first American pupil of Joseph Lister, the founder of antiseptic surgery, and introduced his method of antiseptic wound treatment to America. Marcy published a great deal more about hernia; however, his most important original contribution to American surgery was the development of animal sutures.

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