Denison, Rocky Mountain Health Resorts, 1880, presentation copy

Rocky Mountain Health Resorts. An Analytical Study of High Altitudes in Relation to the Arrest of Chronic Pulmonary Disease. By Charles Denison, A. M., M. D.  Reporter to the International Medical Congress, Philadelphia, 1876, on “The Influence of Hight Altitude Upon the Progress of Phthisis” ; Author of “Reports on Climate and Consumption” to the American Medical Association, Etc. Boston: Houghton, Osgood, and Company. The Riverside Press, Cambridge. 1880. 
 
Full brown leather over boards with gold ruled covers and dentelles, raised bands with gold tooling and fleurons on spine. A few mild scuffs and scratches on boards. Gilt page edges. Marbled end papers with pocket formed by front pastedown to contain a large folding chart on chest examination by Denison. Presentation copy from the author: hand-written slip of paper pasted to second blank, inscribed by author to another physician (name uncertain). Some discoloration to verso of blank due to adhesive used. Title with minor stains, including rust from a paperclip. Folding color map between pages 26 and 27. Text and map clean, bright, and tight. 
 
192 pp + 18 pp of ads at rear. One folding map, one folding chart.
 
See Singer & Underwood, Short History of Medicine, pp 308-9. “...great interest had been awakened in the subject of anoxaemia, mountain sickness, and the results of living at high altitudes.” Disagreements existed on whether or not the effects of altitude were due to excess carbon dioxide, or reduced oxygen. Tests on the oxygen-hemoglobin dissociation curve were undertaken at various altitudes to explore this phenomenon.