BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S MEDICAL IMPRINTS

The printing house of Benjamin Franklin produced several works of a medical nature in Colonial America at a time when very few medical treatises were being written or printed. Benjamin Franklin was also indirectly responsible for the founding of the first medical library in this country. For these reasons he was, in addition to his many other talents, an early contributor to American medical literature. Included in this bibliography are all the known medical books, pamphlets, and broadsides in English with Benjamin Franklin's name in the imprint, issued in America. These eighteen titles span the years 1732 to 1765 and are presented chronologically with indications of their relation to the practice and practitioners of Colonial medicine. Benjamin Franklin's press produced as wide a variety of contributions as did his versatile life, and the early history of medicine in this country bears the influence of both.I am pleased with your scheme of a Medical Library at the Hospital, and I fancy I can procure you some donations among my medical friends here, if you will send me a catalogue of what books you already have. Enclosed I send you the only book of the kind in my possession here, having just received it as a present from the author.-Benjamin Franklin to Dr. Cadwallader Evans, London, May 5, 1767 (1).