Maternity: A Popular Treatise for Young Wives and Mothers
New York: J. B. Ford and Company, 1870. First Edition. Octavo, xxii, 451 pages, publisher's original red cloth covered boards with gilt lettering and decoration to spine. Tullio Suzzara Verdi’s Maternity: A Popular Treatise for Young Wives and Mothers is a 19th-century guide to pregnancy, childbirth, maternal health, nursing, infant care, and domestic medicine, written for lay readers during a period of growing American interest in women’s health, family hygiene, and home medical instruction. Published in 1870, the work reflects Victorian-era ideas about marriage, motherhood, reproduction, and the physical responsibilities of family life, while also showing the influence of homeopathic medical practice. This copy is especially appealing for its mounted label on the inside front board advertising F. G. Boericke’s Homoeopathic Pharmacy, 19 N. Eutaw St., Baltimore, noting that “all medicines treated of in this work” could be obtained there “in their utmost purity.” The label directly connects the volume to the 19th-century homeopathic drug trade and suggests the book’s practical use as both a maternity manual and a guide to procuring homeopathic remedies, making it desirable for collectors of women’s history, obstetrics, domestic medicine, homeopathy, and American medical-pharmaceutical history. Some signs of rubbing and wear, the top part of the dedication page is clipped, front hinge starting to crack, some minor discoloration, else in good + condition. Item #352
Price: $100.00