A Treatise on the Nature of Club-Foot and Analogous Distortions; Including Their Treatment Both with and without Surgical Operation. Illustrated by a Series of Cases and Numerous Practical Instructions. FIRST EDITION. COPY OF WILLIAM DETMOLD

8 leaves of ads of the publisher W. Jeffs (dated May 1, 1839), xxiii [1, errata], [xxi]-lxii, 276 pp; 41 text figures; 8 pp of publisher's ads; 4 leaves of ads of the publisher S. Highley. The preliminaries are: Preface vii-xiv; Contents xv-xxiii; Errata [verso of xxiii]; Introduction [xxi]-lxii. Original cloth, rebacked with original spine preserved (during the rebacking, the copy was bound quite tightly). Corners of covers bent. Very Good. First Edition. Garrison-Morton 4322.1: "Little suffered from club-foot himself. This is the greatest English classic on the subject." COPY OF WILLIAM DETMOLD, with his signature "Dr. Detmold" and address "826 Broadway" on the front flyleaf (see photos of front flyleaf). A fine association. Detmold and Little were students of Stromeyer at the same time in Germany. Each became the leading advocate of subcutaneous tenotomy for the treatment of club foot in his country, Little in the United Kingdom and Detmold in the United States. In addition each was the first orthopedic surgeon in his country. Detmold's book on club foot--"An Essay on Club Foot, and Some Analogous Diseases"--was published in 1840, the year after Little's book. ABOUT W. J. LITTLE: "At the age of two Little developed a club foot, presumed to be due to poliomyelitis. . . . In 1834 Little went to study with Johannes Müller at the University of Berlin in order to discover what could be done to correct his club-foot, which English surgeons refused to treat, leaving it to the bone-setters. During the course of dissections of cadaver club-feet, Little recognized the role of muscles and tendons rather than bones in this deformity. In 1836 Dr. Louis Stromeyer of Hanover successfully undertook Achilles tendon division for Little's club-foot. Little received a doctorate from the University of Berlin in 1837 for his work on the nature of club-foot [his dissertation was entitled "Symbolae ad Talipedem Varum Cognoscendum. Pars I. Genesis. Dissertation inauguralis medica"] . . . . From 1837 Little began to introduce the Stromeyer technique of tenotomy into England. The operation involved anterior division of the Achilles tendon just above the ankle, without anaesthetic, followed by splintage and manipulation. Little's "Treatise on the Nature of Club-Foot and Analogous Distortions" (1839) [offered here] recognized the association between fever and club-foot, and came close to describing foot deformity secondary to poliomyelitis. . . . In 1840 Little founded the Orthopaedic Institution in Bloomsbury, an infirmary for the cure of club-foot and other distortions, and for the study of orthopedics" (Oxford D.N.B.). ABOUT W. L. DETMOLD: "Detmold . . . acquired a basic training in orthopaedics at Stromeyer's institute in Hanover [Germany] and emigrated to New York in 1837 at the age of 29 and was thus the first orthopaedic surgeon in that city. An apostle for Stromeyer in the USA, he performed what may have been the first subcutaneous tenotomy in America on 6th September 1837, and by 1840 was able to report on a series of 167 cases, including operations on many tendons other than at the heel. In 1841 he established a public clinic for the treatment of crippled children, the first such clinic to be instituted in New York. . . . Athough he regarded himself as a Stromeyerian missionary in America, he was not an indiscriminate enthusiast of tenotomy and preferred conservative management if possible; he always followed up the operation with gradual correction in an appliance. . . . There has been a continuing dispute as to who did the first tenotomies in the US, but Detmold himself never asserted any priority and always acknowledged the work of Dickson in North Carolina in 1835 and of Smith in Baltimore in 1836" (LeVay, "The History of Orthopaedics", pp. 384-385). Also the copy of Dr. Dixi Crosby, with his signature on the front pastedown (see photo of front pastedown).…