London: printed for Nath. Crouch, 1666. Small 8vo (133 x 82 mm). Engraved frontispiece. Recent half calf over cloth-covered boards, spine lettered in gilt. Condition: frontispiece shaved into the image area and soiled, overall browning. first edition of a work which includes the first printed account of an autopsy carried out on a plague victim. The medical writer and physician George Thomson (fl. 1648-1679) remained in the London during the outbreak of the Bubonic plague of 1665. The ravages of the contagion reached their peak in September when it is estimated that some 8,000 to 12,000 people died in a single week. This work includes a study of the causes, symptoms and treatment as it was then understood, as well as Thomson's account of the autopsy he carried out on a victim of the plague (a courageous act given that the causes of the infection were so little understood), and an extraordinary account of his own subsequent infection and recovery from the plague. This work was subsequently published in Latin and German versions.