American Medical Botany, Being a Collection of the Native Medicinal Plants of the United States, …

American Medical Botany, Being a Collection of the Native Medicinal Plants of the United States, Containing Their Botanical History and Chemical Analysis and Properties and Uses in Medicine, Diet and the Arts, with Coloured Engravings. 
Boston: Cummings and Hilliard, 1818. Vol. 1. Plate IV, Arum triphyllum; Plate VII, Sanguinaria canadensis.

European herbals and botanical works had included North American plants for centuries, including medicinals such as tobacco, ginseng, snakeroot, and witch hazel. By the early 1800s, there was a growing sense that American medicine required a systematic understanding of the native flora. Jacob Bigelow’s three-volume work, published in parts between 1817 and 1820, anticipated the intense interest in indigenous medicine later in the century. Bigelow (1787-1879), who was critical of the heroic medicine tradition associated with Benjamin Rush, trained as both a physician and botanist. He held the post of Professor of Materia Medica at Harvard for four decades.

Bigelow’s publication holds a notable place in the history of printing, as the first American book to be printed in color (i.e., without later hand coloring). This process resulted in a cheaper, faster production, along with more consistent illustration.