“An Account of Two Extraordinary Cases of Gall-Stones”

To speed information to the medical community in the 18th century, doctors would often write up their experiences with strange or unexpected medical cases and submit the papers to the Royal Society of London for publication in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. This paper, "An Account of Two Extraordinary Cases of Gall-Stones" by James Johnstone, M.D. of Kidderminster. Communicated by the Rev. Charles Lyttelton, L.L.D. of Exeter was presented to the Royal Society on February 9, 1758 and published in 1759 in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Vol. 50, Part II, with text pages from 543 to 550. The paper, which has been disbound from the Transactions, measures approximately 6 x 8 ½ inches. The pages are tanned, but the text is clear and easily read. The overall condition of the item is good.

The text of the paper deals with two cases where women developed serious gall-stones, the symptoms, treatments, and conclusions from those cases.

The illustrations accompanying this description shows the first page of the paper and an additional page of text, which also shows a drawing of one woman's gall-stone,

James Johnstone, a physician of some eminence, was born in 1730. On completing his education, Dr. Johnstone commenced practice at Kidderminster, in Worcestershire, where he quickly acquired a great degree of celebrity by the successful manner in which he treated a peculiar epidemic, called, from its remarkable virulence in that locality, the Kidderminster fever.