Description

A physician and medical reformer enthused by the scientific and cultural progress of the Enlightenment as it took hold in Britain, Thomas Percival (1740-1804) wrote on many topics, including public health and demography. His influential publication on medical ethics is considered the first modern formulation. In 1807, his son Edward published this four-volume collection of his father's diverse work. Some of the items here had never been published before, including a selection of Percival's private correspondence and a biographical account written by Edward. Volume 1 contains this biography and the full text of Percival's popular self-improvement book, A Father's Instructions. Volume 2 contains essays on moral and literary subjects. Also included is the text of Percival's Medical Ethics (1803). Volume 3 contains the first two parts of Essays Medical and Experimental, the revised edition of which has been reissued separately in this series in one volume. Volume 4 contains the third and fourth parts, which were completed following the revised edition.