Paxton, An Introduction to the Study of Human Anatomy, 1844

An Introduction to the Study of Human Anatomy. By James Paxton, Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, Honorary Member of the Ashmolean Society, and Author of Notes and Illustrations to Paley’s Natural Theology. With Illustrations. Fourth American Edition, with Additions, By Winslow Lewis, Jr. M.D. Boston: William D. Ticknor and Company, Corner of Washington and School Streets. 1844. 
 
Octavo in original full brown leather with black title label on spine. One to two inch cracks at heads of front and rear hinges. Library number penned on tail of spine. Corners bumped and chipped. Interior hinges cracking. Institutional library book plate and other artifacts inside. Ffep wanting. Variably toned, foxed, and stained (particularly in gutter near rear of text). Copious underlining. Early pencil anatomy and pathology sketches on rear blanks. 19th century owner’s name mostly torn out from top of page 1. Black and white plates and partially colored in text figures. Binding tight. 
Title – xxiv, 447, blank, rfep. 
 
A good example of a single-volume anatomy textbooks which predate Gray’s of 1858, both in content and organization. The chief merit of this work, according to the prefatory material, is its integration of textual descriptions and illustrations. This contrasts with larger and earlier anatomy textbooks which required much page turning or opening separate volumes to correlate text to plates. Subsequent texts (Wilson, Gray, Morris, to name a few) faithfully followed this improved organization boasted in Paxton. 
 
James Paxton (1786-1860) was an army surgeon then general practitioner. He published books on anatomy as well as published articles on health, diseases of the blood and the stomach, and edited a work on natural theology (DNB).