MONRO (Alexander, secundus). A Description of all the Bursae Mucosae of the Human Body; their structure explained, and compared with that of the capsular ligaments of the joints, and of those sacs which line the cavities of the thorax and abdomen; with remarks on the Accidents and Diseases which affect those several Sacs, and on the Operations necessary for their cure. Illustrated with tables.1788

Edinburgh: Printed for C. Elliot, T. Kay, and Co., First Edition, folio (470 x 290 mm), [5], 6-60pp., 10 engraved plates (4 folding on 2 sheets joined) after A. Fyfe and Thomas Donaldson, plates II and III with short tears not touching the image, plate V a little creased with short closed tears, nineteenth-century half calf, rubbed, covers detached. This was "The first serious study of this subject and the most original anatomical work by the greatest of the Monro dynasty." It contains the first full anatomical description of the sacs between the tendons and bones which Albinus had named the bursae mucosae. They are illustrated on the ten plates "which for explicit clarity and accuracy have not been improved upon." (Heirs of Hippocrates 1011). The plates depict the foot, various joints including the knee and hip, and four of the plates are life-sized representations of the entire arm and leg. Monro secundus' earlier publications were largely polemical, and it was not until he had been teaching for twenty-five years that his three main contributions to medical literature appeared. Monro's Observations on the Structure and Functions of the Nervous System (Edinburgh, 1783), a massive text and atlas on human and comparative neurology, is Monro's greatest work. His Description of All the Bursae Mucosae of the Human Body... was a practical manual for direct use in surgery. Although next to nothing was known of germ life at that time, Monro's acute observation and independent empirical judgement led him to the conclusion that the chief danger of infection in surgery of joints lay in exposure to the air. Garrison-Morton, 399.2; Blake, p.309; Heirs of Hippocrates 1011; Wellcome, IV, p.156. Russell, British anatomy, 613. Taylor, The Monro Collection, M170.