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[FIRST AID] Pervaya pomoshch' v neschastnykh sluchayakh i pri porazheniyakh otravlyayushchimi veshchestvami [i.e. First aid in case of accidents and damage by toxic substances]

Berlyand, A.S.

Item #2279

Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Meditsinskoe Izdatelstvo, 1931. 62, [2] p. : ill. 10х14 cm. Original printed wrappers. Near fine condition. Contemporary pencil owner’s inscription ‘V.Galkin’ on the title page and the front wrapper.

1 of 200 000 copies. Illustrated throughout. The book was produced at ‘Obraztsovaya’ [i.e. Examplary] typography in Moscow in may of 1931, the edition was overlooked by A. Troitskaya and S. Bakhmutskaya, the graphic editor and the text editor respectively.
Abram Solomonovich Berlyand (1897-?), Doctor of Medical Sciences is best known for writing the text for one of the Soviet photomontage masterpieces of the 1930s titled 'The protection of mother and child in the Land of the Soviets' (Berlyand, A. Okhrana materinstva I mladenchestva v strane Sovetov [i.e. The protection of mother and child in the Land of the Soviets]. M., 1935). However, he also contributed to the production of multiple sanitation brochures and popular editions on first aid. During the Soviet period, his various works held 66 editions, mostly before 1941. The books he wrote for the Soviet masses covered topics such as alcoholism, STDs, and what to do in case of a medical emergency. Interestingly, some of Berlyand's works were translated into national languages, such as a Chuvashian edition of this book in the same year (1931). Some of his books were also dedicated to the field of deaf-mutism and the integration of deaf and mute people into Soviet society.
This book is of undoubted interest as a survival of its time, as the author states in the preface that it was intended for use in kolkhoz and sovkhoz communities, and only a small number of copies were designed to make it to the present day. Structurally, most of the book is dedicated to the usual medical emergencies that could occur in the lives of peasants or workers, including encounters with wild animals and nature's uncontrolled forces. However, the last part of the book is devoted solely to the threat of damage by toxic substances, to which the average person somewhere inside the largest country on Earth had little risk of encountering. The author explains this chapter by stating that "we are surrounded by hostile capitalist nations who are dreaming about attacking us." Under that assumption, the author notes that preparation for the toxic elements of an upcoming war is necessary.
This makes it one of the first first-aid books of the time to include such rhetoric and such chapters, which were absent in most similar books of the 1920s.

Not found on the Worldcat. Extremely rare, especially in such a condition.

Price: $350.00