Oct 02, 2012 - Sale 2287

Sale 2287 - Lot 474

Price Realized: $ 5,040
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
(WAR OF 1812.) [Turner, Philip.] Military physician's prescription logbook. 45 manuscript pages. 4to, contemporary wrappers; cropped at top edge with some loss, 19 of the pages covered with later newspaper clippings which are likely removable by a conservator; the entries otherwise clean and legible with only minor wear. [New York], 1 September 1814 to 9 January 1815
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Additional Details

Philip Turner (1740-1815) was a notable physician from Connecticut who had served as a young man at Bunker Hill. By the time of his War of 1812 service described in this volume, he was 74 years old and still making the rounds for the 1st Regiment of Artillery at Fort Columbus on Governor's Island, NY. His logbook entries often list the soldiers under his care and the treatment he prescribed, for example: "Serjt. Stivers, chankers dressed and a vial of lotion" (10 September). Other entries are more general: "A visit to the Arsenal & attending the sick, to 4 pounds of chocolate, to two bot. port wine" (4 September). Venereal disease was a common complaint. Turner also visited officer's wives. Most entries are presumed to be for treatment at Fort Columbus, the largest post in the city at that time. Turner also treated patients at the United States Arsenal on Bridge Street, at the West Battery (Castle Clinton), and at the regular recruiting rendezvous on Market Street. The newspaper clippings obscure earlier entries which likely begin on 11 June 1814 (the date on the cover of the volume).
Turner did not sign this volume, but it matches his handwriting, and most of the officers mentioned here served in the 1st Artillery during this period, including Colonel Jacob Kingsbury. This volume was inherited by Turner's grandson, John Turner Wait (1811-1899), who later represented Connecticut in Congress. Wait signed the cover, may have added the cover illustration titled "The Monkey Prepareing to Shave the Cat," and filled half the volume with clippings dated 1830 and 1831.