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Historical Bibliography Updated: February 8, 2020

Descriptions, virtues, and uses of sundry plants of these northern parts of America, and particularly of the newly discovered Indian cure for the venereal disease.

Publication Details

Philadelphia: B. Franklin & D. Hall, 1751 CE.

Bartram founded one of the first botanical gardens in America (at Kingsessing). Linnaeus referred to him as the “greatest natural botanist in the world”.

A few copies of this 7-page work printed by Benjamin Franklin were issued separately. It is most often found as an appendix to a larger work also printed by Franklin:

Thomas Short's Medicina Britannica, or A treatise on such physical plants, as are generally to be found in the fields or gardens in Great-Britain .... The THIRD EDITION. With a PREFACE by Mr. John Bartram, Botanist of Pennsylvania, and his NOTES throughout the work, shewing the places where many of the described plants are to be found in these parts of America, their differences in name, appearance and virtue, from of the same kind in Europe; and an APPENDIX, containing a description of a number of plants pecular to America, their uses, virtues, &c. London printed: Philadelphia, re-printed, and sold by B[enjamin] Franklin and D. Hall, at the Post-Office, in Market-Street., 1751.

Digital facsimile of Medicina Britannica from the U.S. National Library of Medicine at this link. Bartram's appendix appears on the final 7 pages.

Catalog MetadataReference Information
Entry Number#1832
Permanent Linkhttps://staging.historyofmedicine.com/entry/2171
Author Bio LinkWikipedia ↗
External URLdescriptions-virtues-and-uses-of-sundry-plants-of-these-northern-parts-of-america

Geographic Context

Publication place: Philadelphia

Mentioned in annotation: London