KIRKLAND (Thomas). A Treatise on Child-Bed Fevers, and on the Methods of preventing them. Being a Supplement to the Books lately written on the Subject. To which are prefixed Two Dissertations. The one on the Brain and Nerves; the other on the Sympathy of the Nerves; and of different Kinds of Irritability.1774

London, Printed for R. Baldwin, and W. Dawson, First Edition, early ownership signature on title, viii, [2], 172, [8] pp., modern marbled boards, morocco label on spine, a nice copy. Thomas Kirkland was born in 1722 at Ashbourne in Derbyshire and was the author of many medical works. He graduated M.D. at St. Andrews in 1769 and practised at Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire until his death in 1798.. In January 1760 he became involved in the murder case around Laurence Shirley, 4th Earl Ferrers: he was called in to attend the steward of Lord Ferrers after he had been shot by his master. Kirkland, detained to dinner with the disturbed Earl, left the house covertly, brought a magistrate with armed men, and removed the wounded steward, Johnson, who soon died. He was a witness at the trial where Ferrers was found guilty of murder and hanged at Tyburn on 5 May 1760, his defence of 'occasional insanity of mind' having been rejected. Wellcome, III, p.397.