CULLEN, William.

8vo, pp. iv, 2 leaves, pp. 303, xii. Signature of Rowland Bayley 1774 at top of title. Contemporary calf, very neatly rebacked. Armorial bookplate of John Spencer. Title slightly dust-soiled, otherwise a good, clean copy.

FIRST EDITION of the book which made Cullen’s reputation. G&M 2204. “Drawing from the Linnean system of general systematics, Cullen classified diseases into four categories: fevers, nervous disorders, cachexias (diseases resulting from a bad habit of body), and local diseases. At the time this system seemed a great improvement, and Cullen’s reputation was substantially increased by its publication, yet it brought together some widely distinct diseases while separating others that were closely interrelated. The work also contains synopses of François Bossier de Sauvage’s Nosologia methodica (1763), Linnaeus’s Genera morborum (1763) and Vogel’s Definitiones generum morborum (1764)” (Norman). This first edition is surprisingly rare. It is not in the catalogues of the Wellcome, Osler, Waller or NLM (Blake, but is in the online catalogue); NUC records over 30 editions, but only two copies of this first edition, in the supplement. Norman Catalogue 539. See Copeman, A short history of the gout, pp. 8–9, for Cullen’s classification of rheumatic diseases, including gout.