[MEDICAL] [MANUSCRIPT] PHILADELPHIA PHYSICIAN'S ACCOUNT-BOOK

Philadelphia: 1871-1883. Pages 3-226. 30 x 19 cm. A detailed working record offering a vivid glimpse into the daily practice of a Philadelphia physician during the late nineteenth century. The ledger contains routine entries documenting patients' names, services rendered, and amounts owed - often settled not in cash but through barter. Though the practitioner remains unidentified, many of the patients can be traced to working-class neighborhoods of Philadelphia. Their payments, recorded in the doctor's hand, illustrate a local economy of exchange in goods and labor typical of the period.

Examples include Nathan Miller, a police officer who paid his $6.75 balance (1874-1875) with wine, apples, peaches, beef, and hauling services; and George Aikens, a laborer, who discharged his $25.25 debt (1874-1876) by supplying buckwheat, potatoes, turnips, chickens, straw, logs, and lumber. Other forms of exchange noted include corn, oats, pigs, cider, vinegar, blackberries, and assorted manual work.

The physician's practice was broad in scope, encompassing surgery, obstetrics, dentistry, vaccinations, and general prescriptions. Medicines recorded in the ledger include seidlitz powder, bitter wine of iron, blue mass, arsenic, iodine ointment, bicarb of potassium, hydrate of chloral, iron carbonate, digitalis, cod-liver oil, laudanum, rhubarb root, creosote, cathartic pills, acetate of potassium, and "quicksilver & corrosives." It is interesting to note that most of his treatments cost around .50¢ - prescriptions, visits, vaccinations, and $5.00 for delivering a baby, $1.00 for night visits. First page of index lacking. Disbound, with several gatherings loose; internal foxing, scattered chipping, and occasional closed tears. Numbered and indexed, written on lined paper. Good. Item #4829

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