First Textbook of Neuropathology
1.
ABERCROMBIE, John. Pathological and Practical Researches on Diseases of the Brain and the Spinal Cord. Edinburgh: Printed for Waugh and Innes... 1828. 8vo, pp. xv, (i), 444. Nineteenth century maroon straight-grained morocco, spinal compartments ruled in gilt with gilt centrepieces, sides panelled in gilt and decorated in blind, gilt edges. A fine copy. £1600 FIRST ENGLISH EDITION IN BOOK FORM. G&M 2285.2: “First textbook of neuropathology. Originally published in a series of articles in Edin. med. surg. J., 1818–9, and first collected into book form in the German translation, with appendix...” The appendix is an outline of the diseases of the nerves. See McHenry pp. 249–251, illustrating the title-page, and for a more detailed discussion Spillane, The doctrine of the nerves, pp. 181–183. A particularly nice copy in a fine binding that is unusual for this kind of book.
2.
AMESBURY, Joseph. A Syllabus of Surgical Lectures on the nature and treatment of fractures, diseases of the joints, and deformities of the limbs and spine: containing descriptions of the modes of applying twelve new apparatuses, illustrated by twelve plates; with cases... London: Printed for Thomas and George Underwood... 1827. 8vo, pp. xvi, 146, (2) advertisements, and 12 plates of orthopaedic apparatus. Additional publishers’ advertisements inserted between the front endpapers. Original boards, rebacked, uncut. Boards a little soiled and worn at the corners, some minor browning and foxing, pale stain on the rear endpapers and final advert leaf. Neat presentation inscription on the front free endpaper from David Cadell to H.M. Seymour dated May 1833. £250 SOLE EDITION. Includes the description and instructions for the use of twelve orthopaedic apparatuses designed by Amesbury, as well as outlines of his twenty-two lectures.
So Complete That It Could Not Be Improved
3.
AVICENNA. Libri in re medica omnes, qui hactenus ad nos pervenere. Id est Libri Canonis quinque. De viribus cordis. De removendis nocumentis in regimine sanitatis. De sirupo acetoso. Et Cantica... Venetiis [Venice]: Apud Vincentium Valgrisium. 1564. 2 volumes, folio, 4 leaves, 966 pages, 1 leaf (printer’s device); 6 leaves, pp. 429, (1), 128 leaves (the last blank). Separate title-page to the last 128 leaves of indexes, woodcut device on titles, text printed in double columns. Eighteenth century marbled boards and mottled sheep spines, spines gilt in compartments, red morocco labels (neat repairs to spines, sides a little rubbed). The present binding was evidently put on over an earlier binding, as a lozenge can be clearly discerned in the centre of the covers beneath the marbled paper. Small hole in blank area of last leaf and small dampstain at foot, pale dampstains at beginning and end of vol. 2, otherwise a fine copy. Ownership inscription on titles of both volumes dated 1707; later bookplate of Dr. A. Garrigues. SOLD A very good edition of the medical works of the Arab physician Avicenna (980–1037), including all five Books of the Canon of Medicine and his four smaller medical works. The translation of the Canon is that of Gerard of Cremona corrected by Andrea Alpago, newly revised by Mongius and Costäus and accompanied with variants and short notes. The De Viribus Cordis is translated by Arnald de Villanova, the De Regimen Sanitatis and De Syrupo Acetoso by Alpago, and the Canticum by Armegandus Blasius. At the end of volume 2 are two glossaries of Arabic terms and a large index. Avicenna’s Canon is one of the most famous medical texts ever written, the final codification of Graeco-Arabic medicine, rega rded by some writers as so complete that it could not be improved, which contributed to the static state of Arabic and early medieval medicine. Book I is a study of
continued... 1
the four elements and their relation to the four humours; Book II is on materia medica; Book III is on diseases of specific organs, including the brain, nerves, the eye, the ear, the skin, and the joints; Book IV is on diseases not specific to certain organs, and includes orthopaedics, wounds, and poisons; and Book V is on drugs and their medicinal applications. See G&M 43 (the first printed edition of 1473). Choulant, Handbuch, p. 365. DSB XV, pp. 498– 499. For a good summary of Avicenna’s medicine see Neuburger, History of Medicine, pp. 389–390. Complete copies in f ine condition of Avicenna are scarce, and this edition more often than not lacks the second volume.
4.
BANKS, John. On the Power of Machines, etc. including Doctor Barker’s mill, Westgarth’s engine, Cooper’s mill, horizontal water-wheel, centrifugal pump, common pump, etc., with the method of computing their force. Description of a simple instrument for measuring the velocity of air out of bellows... Also of a gauge for measuring with accuracy the rarefaction in the cylinder of a steam engine. Demonstration of parallel motion. Observations on wheel carriages, lathes, on the lever, etc. Construction of a crank... Experiments on the strength of oak, fir, and cast iron... Kendal: Printed by W. Pennington... 1803. 8vo, pp. viii, 127, 3 folding engraved plates. Modern half calf, antique, uncut. A fine copy. £950 FIRST EDITION. “The text of this book is devoted to experiments, descriptions, and observations concerning various machines... Of especial interest to our subject are his rules and observations on the strength of beams, experiments on the strength of oak and deal, and the means to discover the breaking point of a beam of any given dimensions, as well as the strength of cast-iron angles. The text concludes with observations on cranes, the means of finding the center of gravity, and a description of a gauge for steam engines. According to Dorn, this book, at the time it was published, was ‘probably the nearest thing to a published handbook on structural and steam engineering’.” (Roberts & Trent, Bibliotheca mechanica, p. 21.) Printed in the small Lake District town of Kendal, this book is rare (RLIN records 5 copies). Banks delivered public lectures on scientific subjects in Manchester and the north-west of England for some thirty years.
With the Fourth Volume
5.
BECKMANN, Johann. A History of Inventions and Discoveries. Translated from the German, by William Johnston. London: Printed for J. Bell... 1797 (volume 4: Printed for J. Walker and Co...and J. Bell. 1814). 4 volumes, 8vo, 1 leaf, pp. ii (contents), (v)–xii, 488; 2 leaves, pp. 443; 2 leaves, pp. 491; pp. iv, 682. Contemporary calf, spines gilt with red and blue morocco labels, sides panelled in gilt, blue edges, marbled endpapers (joints of volumes 1 and 4 very carefully repaired, upper joint of volumes 2 and 3 just cracking). Armorial bookplate of Thomas Munro on front pastedowns. Dampstain at the bottom of a dozen leaves in volume 1, otherwise a very good set. £1600 FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH, with the large fourth volume, of the first reliable history of inventions and discoveries. It was not designed as a complete history of technology (a term coined by Beckmann), but rather as a collection of historical descriptions of individual inventions. The text, written in a very readable style, is supplied with numerous full and accurate references in the footnotes, which has ensured the book’s historical value to the present day. The first edition in English of 1797 was published before the author had finished the German original, and so the fourth volume, published for the first time in English with the second edition, is not normally found with sets of the first edition. The contemporary binding of the fourth volume is a very close match to the other three.
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Rare Sepia-Printed Copy With Coloured Plates
6.
BELL, Charles. Illustrations of the Great Operations of Surgery, trepan, hernia, amputation, aneurism, and lithotomy. London: Printed for Longman,... 1821. Oblong folio, pp. viii, 134, and 20 etched plates by T. Landseer after drawings by Bell, printed in sepia and mostly coloured or partly coloured by hand. Original publisher's quarter morocco and green cloth with gilt label on upper cover (upper joint very cleverly repaired, some small repairs to the edges of the cloth), yellow endpapers. A little foxing and offsetting, some very minor soiling, but an excellent copy. Signature of Joseph Sampson Gamgee (1828–1886, surgeon) dated at Birmingham 18th June 1864; presented by him to the Birmingham Medical Institute (of which he was president) with two labels on the front pastedown and their gilt stamp on the spine. £3600 FIRST EDITION, first issue, copy with coloured plates. G&M 5588. “One of the most remarkable illustrated books in the history of surgery... The work’s large, vigorously drawn plates were prepared by Thomas Landseer (brother of Edwin Landseer, the popular Victorian painter of animal subjects), from drawings of operations Bell had made over the previous twenty years. Most copies have the plates printed in black, but at least one copy exists with the plates in sepia” (Norman). With its unusual oblong format, graphic depiction of operations exhibiting an unusual degree of realism, and coloured plates, Bell, who was then at the height of his fame, clearly intended this work to be a tour-de-force of surgical literature. Among the operations depicted are trepan, several kinds of hernia, amputation, and lithotomy. It also has a remarkable introduction by Bell on the duties and responsibilities of the surgeon. Norman Catalogue 174 (later issue). Zimmerman & Veith pp. 417–420. This copy is of the first issue with the title-page dated 1821 and the name of Hurst included in the imprint.
7.
BELL, Charles. Surgical Observations; being a quarterly report of cases in surgery; treated in the Middlesex Hospital, in the cancer establishment, and in private practice... London: Printed for Longman,... 1816 [–1818]. 2 volumes in 1, 8vo, pp. xxiv, 500, 15 engraved plates; pp. xii, 140, 5 engraved plates (1 folding). Some plate numbers and captions shaved, some slight browning and minor foxing, old library stamp on verso of title and last page. Contemporary half calf, nicely rebacked and recornered, endpapers replaced. £1400 FIRST EDITION, issued in a series of five parts. This was the only collection of surgical cases that Bell published, arranged by subjects that include diseases and wounds of the larynx and oesophagus, fistula in perineo, fracture of the spine and other bones, hernia, wounds by machinery (perhaps the first such), cancer, injuries to the head, and much more. As usual the plates are engraved from his own drawings. This is one of Bell’s rarer books, and extant copies frequently lack the second volume (e.g., the BL copy and one of the Wellcome copies).
8.
BELL, John. Engravings, explaining the Anatomy of the Bones, Muscles, and Joints. Edinburgh: Printed by John Paterson; for Bell and Bradfute... 1794. 4to, 3 leaves, pp. xxii, (i), 108, 103–191 + the extra leaves numbered 38* and 109*, engraved title and 32 plates (including 4 outline plates), 2 engravings in the text. Two pale dampstains in the fore-edge of the engraved title, paper very slightly browned in the margins, but a very good copy. Good modern half calf antique. £2400 FIRST EDITION. These plates were described by Garrison as “one of the milestones in the history of anatomic delineation”. All the drawings and most of the engraving and etching were the work of the author, who, like his brother Charles, was an excellent artist. They have a striking, macabre quality, described by Russell as “magnificently realistic”, which is not seen to the same extent in other works of anatomic illustration. “Certainly they have the immediacy of drawings made in the continued... 3
Item 8, reflecting the dark, stark reality of an Edinburgh dissecting room
dissecting rooms of late Georgian Edinburgh... In their context, however, they are admirable for they were intended to be used to supplement the teacher’s demonstrations, to remind the student of what he had seen, and to be a guide when the student sat down with the prosected material. It was under the Bells...that the extramural schools brought the aspiring surgeon much closer to the cadaver, allowing the student opportunities for actual dissection” (Roberts & Tomlinson, The Fabric of the Body, p. 491). Russell, British anatomy, 60; this is the first issue, with the extra leaves. This copy is unusual, perhaps unique, as page numbers 103–108 are duplicated, and contain different explanations for plate III of the muscles.
9.
BELL, John. The Principles of Surgery, as they relate to wounds, ulcers, and fistulas; aneurism and wounded arteries; fractures of the limbs; and the duties of the military and hospital surgeon. Also, a system of surgical operations...and a series of cases. London: Printed for Longman,... 1815. 3 volumes (volume 2 is in 2 parts), 4to, 4 leaves, pp. 674, 19 plates (of which 12 are hand-coloured), 61 engraved illustrations in the text, and extra leaf to the plate at p. 301; 2 leaves, pp. (vii)-xxxii, 288, 2 leaves, pp. (289)–840, 32 plates (including 2 folding), 9 text illustrations, and extra leaf to plates at pp. 208, 304 and 358; 3 leaves, pp. 298, 37 plates. Edges of a few plates folded in, being larger than the book. Some very minor foxing and a few leaves spotted in volumes 1 and 2, some foxing of the text leaves and offsetting from the plates in volume 3 (as usual with this book), but generally a really nice, clean and fresh set. Contemporary half calf (slight wear to foot of one spine and tips of a few corners). Presentation inscription from Robert Freeman to George Taylor dated 1845 pasted into volume 1. £3600 continued... 4
Item 9, from the most impressive English book on surgery
FIRST EDITION, SECOND ISSUE (the sheets of the first edition of 1801–08 re-issued with cancel title-pages; this issue is therefore identical to the first in every respect other than the title-pages). See G&M 2926 and 5581. One of the finest books in English on surgery, and, in three quarto volumes, one of the largest. Bell is regarded as the founder of surgical anatomy, and, with Desault and John Hunter, of the modern surgery of the vascular system. He was the first to ligate the gluteal artery, and tied the common carotid and internal iliac. The first volume, on “The Ordinary Duties of a Physician”, includes his discussion of Tagliacozzi and the principle of plastic surgery (see the Zeis Index 475). Volume 2 is on lithotomy and diseases of the urethra, and (part 2) on the anatomy and pathology of the skull and brain. All the illustrations in the book, of which there are 88 plates and 70 smaller illustrations, were drawn by Bell himself, and he praises his engravers, who included Lizars and Skelton. His skill as a draughtsman approached that of his younger brother Charles. He was “one of the great medical men who have illustrated their own books... His monumental Principles of Surgery [is] embellished with beautiful original engravings and full of historical and clinical matter relating to the ligation of the great vessels, fractures, trephining, tumors and lithotomy, of which he gives a detailed history” (Garrison).
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First Book on Neurosurgery
10.
BERENGARIO da CARPI, Jacopo. Tractatus de Fractura Calve sive Cranei. [Colophon:] Bononiae [Bologna]: per Hieronymum de Benedictis, 1518. 4to, ff. CV, (1) blank. Woodcut illustration on title of a head in profile showing 3 cerebral ventricles, woodcut illustrations of surgical instruments on leaves XCI recto to XCIV verso, woodcut printer’s device at end. Contemporary vellum, foot of spine worn. Minor dust soiling on title, but a very fine copy. Early inscription on leaf CIII. £34,500 FIRST EDITION of the first book on a neurosurgical subject, more specifically “the first separate treatise on head injuries and their neurological treatment. The work originated in a dispute between Berengario and some other physicians over the treatment of Lorenzo de Medici, who had suffered a skull fracture in battle. Berengario described several types of skull fractures and grouped the resulting lesions according to their symptoms, drawing from his own observations, as well as contemporary knowledge, to cite the relation between location and neurological effect. “He also discussed prognosis, diagnosis and treatment, described the technique of craniotomy and provided detailed illustrations of contemporary neurosurgical instruments. The title illustration is a typical representation of the medieval cell doctrine, which localized mental functions in the ventricles or ‘cells’ of the brain” (Norman catalogue). The book also discusses apoplexy, meningitis, and paralysis, and contains Hippocrates’ De capitis vulneribus in the translation of Marcus Fabius Calvus. “Berengario’s book was the most original neurological treatise until then and was not surpassed until the appearance of Ambroise Paré’s similar work in 1562, in which Paré expressed his appreciation of his predecessor’s efforts and made use of them” (DSB). G&M 4850.2. Norman catalogue 186. Stillwell, The awakening interest in science, 600. Putti 130. This copy is offered together with Vittorio Putti’s Berengario da Carpi (Bologna, 1937), which includes an Italian translation of the text.
Fine Baroque Anatomy
11.
BIDLOO, Govert. Anatomia Humani Corporis... Amstelodami [Amsterdam]: Sumptibus viduae Joannis à Someren, haeredum Joannis à Dyk, Henrici & viduae Theodori Boom, 1685. Large folio, 68 unnumbered leaves (including the engraved title), fine engraved portrait of the author by A. Blootling after Gérarde de Lairesse, and 105 engraved anatomical plates from drawings by Lairesse (plate 23 folding, plate 10 normally folding here bound as two plates). Contemporary vellum, sympathetically rebacked, endpapers sometime replaced (upper cover marked). A little foxing and offsetting, some rust-spots, but a very clean copy. £10,500 FIRST EDITION. G&M 385. One of the finest anatomical atlases of the Baroque period. Bidloo planned to produce an anatomical atlas that would overshadow all others previously published, from the standpoint of originality and artistic merit of the illustrations. He therefore engaged the services of the painter Gérard de Lairesse, who portrayed his subjects in the situation in which they normally lay, rather than transporting them to a landscape location. By including ordinary objects such as books and jars, and by showing the pins and cords which held the dissections in place, the artist brought the qualities of Dutch still-life painting into anatomical illustration, but by the same token the inclusion of a fly on the body added a degree of realism hitherto not seen. The engraving is most elegantly done and artistically perfect, and Bidloo succeeded in producing one of the finest and largest atlases, both in format and the number of plates, in the entire literature of general anatomy. The book most probably had a small sale and this first edition is consequently scarce. However, a second edition appeared with Dutch text, and the book reached a wider bookbuying public in England with William Cowper’s blatant plagiarism. See Hagelin, Rare and important medical books, pp. 108–111. Norman Catalogue 231. Choulant pp. 250–253.
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Item 10, the first book on neurosurgery
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12.
BIGELOW, Henry Jacob. Insensibility during Surgical Operations produced by Inhalation.] [In:] The Lancet, vol. 1, no. 1 (January 2, 1847), pp. 5–8 and 16–17 (editorial). London: Printed for the Editor, and Published by George Churchill..., [1847]. Large 4to, 702 pages. Contemporary green half cloth. £1100 FIRST ENGLISH EDITION, and the first publication on this side of the Atlantic, of the first account of ether anaesthesia. See G&M 5651, the appearance of this paper in the Boston Medical & Surgical Journal some six weeks previously. This was thus the first account published in Europe of an operation performed with the aid of ether anaesthesia. “The original title [as given in the Boston. Med. & Surg. J.] was not given. Jacob Bigelow, the father of H.J. Bigelow, wrote on 28 November to Francis Boott of London telling him of Morton’s discovery and enclosing the text of his son’s communication as it had appeared in the Boston Daily Advertiser. Boott forwarded Jacob Bigelow’s letter and H. J. Bigelow’s paper to The Lancet which published them both in their number for 2 January 1847. Appended to the reprint was a letter from Robert Liston to Dr. Boott dated 21 December 1846 saying that on that day he had successfully used ether during an amputation at the knee, thus recording the first operation under ether anaesthesia in Europe. Liston had learned of Bigelow’s letter to Boott on Saturday, the 19th, and carried out his first operation on Monday, the 21st!” (Fulton & Stanton). The first reference to ether in the British press is a short paragraph in the London Medical Gazette for 18 December 1846, and the second is in The Lancet for 26 December. The two are evidently based on the same source, and are statements only (reprinted by Fulton & Stanton), rather than full accounts. In The Lancet for 9 January 1847, further correspondence (pp. 49–51) on Bigelow’s patent is included, and in the issue for 16 January “a long and well written editorial appears excoriating both Jackson and Morton for attempting the patent” (Fulton & Stanton), and pp. 77–80 give accounts of operations under anaesthesia, including an illustration of “Mr. Hooper’s Ether Inhalator, constructed according to Dr. Boott and Mr. Robinson’s Instructions”. The second volume for the year, in a matching binding, is also present, containing numerous papers, correspondence and references to ether anaesthesia, by physicians including Snow, Liston and Marcy. Fulton & Stanton IV.5.
13.
BIGELOW, Henry Jacob. The Mechanism of Dislocations and Fracture of the Hip. II. Litholapaxy; or, rapid Lithotrity with Evacuation. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1900. 8vo, pp. x (including the first blank leaf), 356. Original red buckram, uncut, two bookplates (one partially defaced). Spine slightly faded, some foxing throughout. £100 A reprint of two of Bigelow’s earlier works, forming part of the 4-volume set of his Orthopedic surgery and other medical papers (1900). See G&M 4424: “Bigelow emphasized for the first time the importance of the thickened portion of the anterior capsule of the hip joint, now known as the Y-ligament of Bigelow, and its importance in the reduction of traumatic dislocations of the hip... Bigelow’s analysis of the types of dislocations and the methods of reduction provided orthopedists with the information that they needed to improve their methods of reducing congenital dislocations of the hip by closed manipulation (Peltier, Orthopedics, pp. 62 and 67). See also Valentin, Geschichte der Orthopädie, p. 129.
First Comprehensive Book on Metallurgy and Associated Technologies
14.
BIRINGUCCIO, Vannuccio. Pirotechnia. Li diece libri della Pirotechnia, nelliquali si tratta non solo la diversita delle minere, ma ancho quanto si ricerca alla prattica di esse: e di quanto s’appartiene all’arte della fusione over getto de metalli, d’ogni altra cosa a questa somigliante. [Colophon:] In Vinegia [Venice]: per Giovan Padoana, a instantia di Curtio di Navo, 1550. continued... 8
Item 14, Biringuccio.
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Item 14, Biringuccio.
4to, ff. (viii), 167, (1). Title within ornate woodcut border depicting working apparatus, printer’s handsome woodcut device on recto of last leaf, numerous pictorial woodcuts in the text. Eighteenth century mottled calf, spine gilt in compartments, red morocco label (a little chipped, small repairs to ends of spine, tips of corners worn), marbled endpapers (upper corner of rear pastedown missing), red edges. Occasional pale dampstain, mostly very faint, small stain in gutter of last few leaves, a little minor soiling, generally a very good copy. Several eighteenth century signatures on verso of last leaf and on free endpaper. £7750 Second edition of the only printed work to cover the whole field of metallurgy as known at that time, and the first comprehensive account of the fire-using arts. This work is the fruit of Biringuccio’s actual experience, and embraces virtually the whole field of technology. It is divided into ten books, which deal with (1) metallic ores; (2) the “semi-minerals” (including mercury, sulphur, gems and glass); (3) assaying and preparing ores for smelting; (4) the parting of gold and silver, both with nitric acid, and with antimony sulfide or sulphur; (5) alloys of gold, silver, copper, lead, and tin; (6) the art of casting large statues and guns; (7) furnaces and methods of melting metals; (8) the making of small castings; (9) miscellaneous pyrotechnical operations, including alchemy, distillation, smithing and pottery; and (10) the making of saltpetre, gunpowder and fireworks. “Virtually all of Biringuccio’s descriptions are original. He is important in art history for his description of the peculiarly Renaissance arts of casting medallions, statues, statuettes, and bells. His account of typecasting, given in considerable detail, is the earliest known. The Pirotechnia contains eighty-three woodcuts, the most useful being those depicting furnaces for distillation, bellows mechanisms, and devices for boring cannon and drawing wire... “[It] is a prime source on many practical aspects of inorganic chemistry... Biringuccio’s approach is in strong conflict with that of the alchemists, whose work he evaluates in eleven pages of almost modern criticism, distinguishing their practical achievements from their theoretical motivations... “Biringuccio has been called one of the principal exponents of the experimental method...” ( DSB). This is Biringuccio’s only published book and the sole source for his work. This second edition is typographically superior to the first edition of 1540 according to Smith & Gnudi, the translators of the English edition (1942). continued... 10
Hoover catalogue 130. Duveen p. 79. See Dibner 38; Parkinson, Breakthroughs, 1540; Stillwell, The awakening interest in science, VI, 827. Partington, II, pp. 32–37. Singer, History of technology, III, p. 27, etc. Cockle, Military books, 931.
Modern Blood Transfusion
15.
BLUNDELL, James. Researches Physiological and Pathological: instituted principally with a view to the improvement of medical and surgical practice. [London:] E. Cox and Son,... 1825. 8vo, 3 leaves, pp. (3)–146, 3 engraved plates. Half-title, sub-title before the text. Plates rather foxed, and dampstained along upper edge, a few spots in the text. Original boards, neatly rebacked, corners worn, uncut. PRESENTATION COPY, inscribed at the head of the title: “To _ Windsor Esqre with the Authors respects”. £950 FIRST EDITION. In this book Blundell described his work on blood transfusion. He was the first to use human blood for human blood transfusion, in 1819 (G&M 2015.1). Very little progress had been made in that field since the seventeenth century because of repeated failures. Blundell began his experiments on dogs, inventing a syringe for the specific purpose of transfusing blood (G&M 2015). Because of the obvious risks, Blundell suggested transfusion only for its true purpose, that is, for cases in which haemorrhaging was a danger to life, and not for the cure of senility, insanity, or other chronic diseases. He argued for the use of blood from the same species, having proved with his experiments on dogs that disastrous results came from using even the smallest quantity of blood from different species (thereby establishing the principle of incompatibility). He described experiments using direct transfusion by tubes, direct transfusion using a device of his own invention called a “impellor” (illustrated in plates 2 and 3), and indirect transfusion using his own syringe, the last becoming his favoured method. At the end of the book Blundell describes six cases of human to human transfusion, although none of his patients survived (probably because they were in no condition to do so, two of them being already dead). By 1828, however, he was able to report in The Lancet (G&M 2017) that he had performed a successful human to human blood transfusion. See Keynes (ed.), Blood transfusion, pp. 20–23 (incorrectly stating that Blundell described transfusing a human subject in his first paper of 1818). This book, of which there was only one edition, was Blundell’s only publication on the subject in book form, his other publications mentioned above being journal articles. He was obstetrician to St. Thomas’s and Guy’s Hospitals, and devotes the first part of the book to obstetrics.
16.
BOYLE, Robert. Experiments and Considerations touching Colours. First occasionally written, among some other essays, to a friend; and now suffer’d to come abroad as the beginning of an experimental history of colours. London: Printed for Henry Herringman... 1664. 8vo, pp. (xl), 423, 1 folding engraved plate with letterpress explanation beneath. Title printed in red and black, separate title to the last part (A Short Account of...a Diamond that Shines in the Dark). Contemporary calf (upper joint and tips of two corners neatly repaired), flat spine with original blind rules and eighteenth century gilt rules and centres, later marbled pastedown endpapers (contemporary with the gilt ornaments on the spine). £5250 FIRST EDITION. One of Boyle’s most important works, in which he not only observed and recorded changes of colour that occurred in chemical reactions, but also suggested that these colour changes could be used for chemical identification and classification. The book is also important in the history of optics for assisting Newton in his discovery of the nature of light — Boyle understood the effect of total reflection and absorption of light, producing the tonal extremes of whiteness and blackness. “The treatise on ‘Colours’ ranks in importance with the ‘Spring and Weight of the Air’ and the ‘Usefulness’. It deals with a large variety of phenomena and contains many generalizations which
continued... 11
were subsequently adopted by Newton in his memorable treatise on ‘Optics’. Boyle was the first to record that certain vegetable extracts, e.g. lignum nephriticum, change colour when the solution is made acid or changed from acid to alkali. In so doing, he gave to the world the first account of those important substances now well known to the chemist as ‘indicators’. He also mentions the iridescence of metallic films and soap bubbles, and describes ‘snow-blindness’ (p. 99). Wing B3967. Fulton 57. This book is frequently found in poor state or lacking the folding plate. In some collections (e.g. Duveen and Norman) the reprint of 1670 is substituted for the first edition.
17.
BRAMWELL, Byrom. Atlas of Clinical Medicine. Edinburgh: Printed by T. and A. Constable at the University Press, 1892 [–1893–1896]. 3 volumes, folio, pp. viii, 184, 32 plates including XIA and XXA; viii, 128, 30 plates; viii, 149, 40 plates. Paper lightly browned in the margins. Original blue buckram, t.e.g., fore- and lower edges uncut, a little faded and marked but a very good set. £675 SOLE EDITION of this strikingly illustrated collection of case reports. Many of the 102 large plates are coloured lithographs, and others are reproduced from photographs. It is described by McHenry as “a prime source of neurological material” (History of Neurology, p. 319).
Psychoanalysis
18.
BREUER, Joseph, and Sigmund FREUD. Wien [Vienna]: Franz Deuticke, 1895.
Studien über Hysterie.
Leipzig und
8vo, 3 leaves, 269 pages. Contemporary black half cloth. Paper slightly browned, but a fresh and clean copy. Stamp of Dr. R. Hofstätter (1883–1970) of Vienna on the front endpaper and some pencil markings in the text. £2400 FIRST EDITION. G&M 4978. “The foundation of psychoanalysis. Using what they called the cathartic method, in which hysterical patients were made to describe the manifestations of their symptoms in detail, with or without hypnosis, Breuer and Freud were successful in providing the patients with temporary relief from symptoms. Breuer chose not to continue research on his patients. However, Freud, who had studied hypnosis with Charcot, as well as the psychotherapeutic method of Liébault and Bernheim, used this work as the basis for development of the method of free association, and the essential psychoanalytic concepts of the unconscious, repression and transference.” Norman catalogue F25.
19.
BRUNEL, Pedro. Memoria sobre Las Enfermedades que se deben tener por Lacteas durante el Curso del Preñado, y despues del Parto. Van añadidas muchas observaciones prácticas, relativas á sus causas y efectos, para demostrar la exîstencia de dichas enfermedades, y sobre el régimen que parece exîgen en los dos diferentes tiempos. Madrid: por Don Blas Roman, 1791. 4to, pp. (xvi), 294, (2)blank. Half-title, attractive engraved headpiece to first page of text. Contemporary red morocco, gilt border to covers, spine gilt in compartments with sage leather label, gilt inner dentelles, blue silk endpapers, all edges gilt. Extremities a little scuffed, but still a lovely, clean and crisp copy, finely printed on superb quality paper. £1250 FIRST EDITION. Brunel was obstetrician to Queen Maria Luisa to whom this work is dedicated. This is evidently a de luxe copy, possibly printed on thick paper, but there is unfortunately no indication of the provenance. Palau 36344. Probably rather scarce (2 copies in NUC, also Waller 1559).
12
20.
CAMPER, Pieter. Demonstrationum Anatomico-Pathologicarum liber primus, continens brachii humani fabricam et morbos. [Bound with:] Demonstrationum Anatomico-Pathologicarum liber secundus, continens pelvis humanae fabricam et morbos. Amstelaedami: apud Joann. Schreuder et Petrum Mortier Juniorem, 1760 [–1762]. 2 parts in 1 volume, large folio, pp. (vi), 22, (2), 2 engraved plates; (iv), 22, (2), 5 engraved plates (including 2 in outline), all by van der Schley from drawings by Camper. Contemporary English half calf, nicely rebacked and recornered, spine with gilt centres and red morocco label, original red morocco label on upper cover. Marbled sides rubbed and soiled, but internally an excellent copy. With the armorial bookplate of Dr. [David] Orme (d. 1812), lecturer on midwifery and man-midwife extraordinary to the City of London Lying-in Hospital. £2600 FIRST EDITION, complete with both parts. The five plates, the largest anatomical drawings in a book by Camper, depict almost life-size the arm, the shoulder, the hand, and the pelvis, including “Camper’s chiasma”, and represent Camper’s most important contribution to surgical anatomy. Choulant/Frank p. 285, describing this work as “particularly valuable”. The Landslips of 1839
21.
CONYBEARE, William, and William DAWSON, et al. Ten Plates comprising a plan, sections, and views, representing the changes produced on the coast of east Devon, between Axmouth and Lyme Regis by the Subsidence of the Land and Elevation of the Bottom of the Sea, on the 26th December, 1839, and 3rd of February, 1840, from drawings by W. Dawson, Esq. civil engineer and surveyor, Exeter, the Rev. W.D. Conybeare and Mrs. [Mary] Buckland. With a geological memoir and sections, descriptive of these and similar phænomena, by the Rev. W.D. Conybeare. The whole revised by Professor Buckland. London: John Murray... 1840. Oblong folio, pp. (vi), 14, and 10 plates engraved on zinc (1 hand-coloured plan of the landslip, 1 double-page hand-coloured geological view, 1 hand-coloured geological section, and 7 tinted views including 1 double-page). Foxing on the tinted plates. Original cloth-backed marbled boards (somewhat worn and creased down the centre), printed label on upper cover. Presentation copy from Dawson to one of the subscribers, inscribed in the upper corner of the title “R.G.S. Tuckett with Mr Dawson’s kind regards” followed by a presentation inscription from Tuckett. £2600 SOLE EDITION. A very strikingly illustrated memoir depicting the large landslips on the coast of Devon that occurred in December 1839 and February 1840. The last plate shows the scene of a third landslip that took place nearby in 1790. Another, fully coloured issue exists with two additional plates, but that is exceptionally rare (possibly issued in only 12 copies, all signed). The present issue is itself very scarce, and this copy has a presentation inscription from William Dawson to a local resident and subscriber. Abbey, Scenery, 129.
22.
COOPER, Sir Astley [Paston]. The Lectures...on the Principles and Practice of Surgery; with additional notes and cases, by Frederick Tyrrell. London: Printed for Thomas and George Underwood,... 1824 [–1825–1827]. 3 volumes, 8vo, pp. v, 1 leaf, pp. 352, + errata slip; iv, (ii), 457, 4 lithographed plates (2 handcoloured); (iv), 538, 2 lithographed plates on 1 folding sheet. The uncoloured plates a bit foxed, small hole in T8 of vol. 2 with loss of 10 letters, last leaf of vol. 3 a bit stained. Contemporary half calf, rebacked and corners repaired. Library labels on front pastedowns and two stamps on titlepages and in the margin of about a dozen leaves in each volume, otherwise a good clean set. £600 FIRST EDITION. The first publication of Astley Cooper’s complete course of lectures, which he gave for over thirty years, attracting unprecedented numbers of students. See Brock, The life and work of Astley Cooper, chapter XII, “Lecturer and Teacher”. Zeis Index 515, 1311, 1622.
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23.
COOPER, Sir Astley. Denkschrift über die Unterbindung der Aorta abdominalis. Nach der mit Anmerkungen und Zusätzen versehenen Ausgabe des Bidault de Villiers, D.M.P., mitgetheilt von Dr. Aug. Carus. Leipzig: bei Paul Gotthelf Kummer, 1824. Small 8vo, pp. xiv, 54. Original blue stiff wrappers. Old library stamp on upper wrapper and title, spine worn, but a fine copy. £200 FIRST EDITION IN GERMAN, and second separate edition, after the French, of Cooper’s account of his operation for ligating the abdominal aorta in 1817. See G&M 2941; there is no separate English edition, but the account was included in Cooper’s Surgical Essays of 1818. Astley Cooper was the keenest exponent of vascular surgery in the early decades of the nineteenth century. “In the management of aneurysm, he pioneered in the ligation of the common carotid and external iliac arteries and attained the ultimate of ligating the abdominal aorta” (Zimmerman & Veith, Great Ideas in the History of Surgery, 398).
24.
DIOSCORIDES. De Medicinali Materia Libri Sex, Joanne Ruellio Suessionensi interprete. Cuilibet capiti huius secundae editionis additae annotationes...cum triginta iconibus stirpium nondum delineatarum, quas huiusce libri finis dabit. Lugduni [Lyon]: Apud Balthazarem Arnolletum, 1552. Small 8vo, pp. (xxxii), 790, (2) blank, (16). Woodcut printer’s device on title, and c. 525 woodcuts in the text. A few minor stains but a very good copy. Contemporary brown morocco panelled in blind, old repair to head of spine, two very small holes in foot of spine. Some contemporary annotations to the text and on the front pastedown; bookplate on front free endpaper of The Horticultural Society of New York, Kenneth K. Mackenzie bequest October 1934. £2800 Second Arnoullet edition (first, 1550), to which are added the 8 leaves at the end with 30 woodcuts of plants, a lobster and a sea-horse, derived from Dalechamps, which are new to this edition. All the woodcuts in the text are by Clement Boussy, and were previously used by Arnoullet for his edition of Fuchs. In Book Two are twelve zoological cuts which derive from Gueroult’s Decades de la description...des animaulx (1549–1550). First published in 1478, Dioscorides’ work is the authoritative source on the materia medica of antiquity. The translation from the Greek in this edition was by Jean Ruel (1474–1537), the most important French botanist of the earlier Renaissance period.
25.
[DOSSIE, Robert.] Theory and Practice of Chirurgical Pharmacy: comprehending a complete dispensatory for the use of surgeons... London: Printed for J. Nourse... 1761. 8vo, pp. xviii, (vi), 485, (3). Paper a little browned or foxed. Contemporary calf, rebacked preserving the original red morocco label, sides a bit marked, endpapers replaced. £280 FIRST EDITION. The first part, on theory, gives the effects of various generic and specific medicines and simples on particular parts of the body. The second part, on practice, gives their method of use. Dossie was an apothecary and consulting chemist in Sheffield. When he moved to London in 1757 he quickly established a reputation by his publications, which were principally of a chemical nature. Cole 384.
History of Surgery in China and Japan
26.
DUJARDIN, [François, and Bernard] PEYRILHE. Histoire de la Chirurgie, depuis son origine jusqu’à nos jours. Paris: de l’Imprimerie Royale, 1774 [–1780]. 2 volumes, 4to, pp. xix, (i), 528, xxix, (i), 4 engraved plates; xvi, 794, xxxviii. Wormtrack (2 cm) in inner margin of four leaves of vol. 1, title-page of vol. 2 a little dust-soiled and with small piece continued... 14
Item 26, acupuncture points
15
eroded from upper corner of first five leaves. Near contemporary quarter sheep, two black labels on spines, marbled paper sides. Short (2 cm) split in upper joint of vol. 2 and foot of spine worn, but a good set. £850 FIRST EDITION. G&M 6374.12. This large history of surgery covers the period from antiquity to the time of Alexander of Tralles (500 A.D.). Of particular interest is a long chapter in volume 1, devoted to the surgical history of China and Japan, which discusses acupuncture within its historical context as an ancient remedy still found to be of practical value. The four plates reproduce those of Ten Rhijne (1683). Dujardin died in 1775, and the second volume was edited by Bernard Peyrilhe, who conducted pioneer experiments on cancer. Quite rare.
27.
DUVERNEY, [Guichard Joseph]. l’Ainé,... 1751.
Traité des Maladies des Os.
Paris: de Bure,
2 volumes, 12mo, pp. cciv, 454; (iv), 541, (3). Contemporary sprinkled calf, spines gilt, red and black morocco labels. Old library stamp on titles and last text pages, bindings a little rubbed and upper joint of vol. 2 cracking, but a nice set. £600 FIRST EDITION. One of the first books to deal comprehensively and exclusively with the diseases of bones; it ranks with Petit’s earlier work on the same subject as the most influential of these early orthopaedic books. It was written before Andry’s L’Orthopédie, but was published nine years after it. Duverney subscribed to the theory that club-foot was caused by an imbalance in the muscles of the foot and ankle. Like all of Duverney’s works except that on the ear for which he is most famous, this work was published posthumously, edited by J.B. Sénac. Bick, Source book, 81. Valentin, Geschichte der Orthopädie, 79.
Invention of the Modern Hospital Bed
28.
EARLE, Henry. Practical Observations in Surgery. London: Printed for Thomas and George Underwood... 1823. 8vo, pp. x, 2 leaves, pp. 229, (1), 3 engraved plates (2 folding). Large but quite faint library stamp on title and several other pages, some small marks and pencil marks, short wormtrack in the lower margin of the last plate and endpaper and inside of back cover, paper slightly browned. Contemporary half calf, joints neatly repaired. £750 FIRST EDITION. One of the six essays which make up this volume is a description of the hospital bed invented by Earle for cases of fracture of the leg, and which became the modern hospital bed. It is illustrated in one of the plates, and Earle was awarded the gold medal of the Society of Arts for it. Of the other papers, “two are reprints of his papers in the Philosophical Transactions on an injury to the urethra and on the mechanism of the spine; the others are on injuries near the shoulder, on fracture of the funny-bone, and on certain fractures of the thigh-bone” (DNB). Earle was Percivall Pott’s grandson. Norman catalogue 675.
29.
EHRLICH, Paul. Das Sauerstoff-Bedürfniss des Organismus. Eine farbenanalytische Studie. Berlin: August Hirschwald, 1885. 8vo, 2 leaves, 167 pages. Original green cloth, spine slightly worn at ends, inner hinge cracked, library stamp on front endpaper and title, label removed from endpaper, shelf mark on upper cover. £295 FIRST EDITION. G&M 2540. “In 1885 a remarkable monograph...reporting his investigations into the distribution of oxygen in animal tissues and organs gained widespread attention from medical continued... 16
scientists. Using two vital-staining dyes,...he demonstrated that while living protoplasm in general has potent reducing properties, bodily organs are classifiable into three categories according to their oxygen avidity... Two years later the monograph won the Tiedemann Prize...” (DSB). This book, Ehrlich’s first monograph, also includes the first statement of his side-chain theory, which postulated two different chemical groups in the diphtheria toxin molecule, and their functions.
30.
FABRICI (AB AQUAPENDENTE), Girolamo. De Formatione Ovi, et Pulli Tractatus Accuratissimus. Patavii [Padua]: ex Officina Aloysii Bencii Bibliopolae, 1621. Folio, 2 leaves, 68 pages, 1 leaf, 4 engraved plates; also 3 full-page engravings on text leaves, all with numerous figures. Woodcut device on title. Dampstain in the lower margin and faintly at the foot of the plates, tiny hole in the last plate not affecting any engraved figure, figure numbers on one engraving and two plates just shaved at top (the other two plates folded in). Modern limp vellum antique, green silk ties. £8500 FIRST EDITION. G&M 466. The first of Fabrici’s extant works on embryology, and probably his rarest book. It includes the first printed figures of the development of the chick. It was Fabrici who for the first time exhaustively applied the ‘new’ Vesalian method of direct observation to the study of embryos. The work contains the best description of the reproductive tract of the hen up to that time. Fabrici discovered the bursa now called bursa Fabrici and was the first to establish with any degree of accuracy the role played by the ovary and oviduct in the formation of the hen’s egg. He was the first to describe the germinal disc distinctly. De formatione ovi et pulli is divided into two parts. The first, in three chapters, deals with the formation of the egg. The first chapter discusses the three bases of animal generation given by Aristotle, the egg, the seed, and spontaneous generation from decomposing materials. In the second chapter Fabrici states two functions of the “uterus”: the formation of the egg its nutrition. The third chapter concerns the usefulness of the uterus. The second part of the treatise, also in three chapters, is concerned with the generation of the chick within the egg. The second chapter deals with the three basic functions of the egg: the formation, growth, and nutrition of the chick. He concludes his discussion with the trophic functions of both yolk and albumen. Fabrici then speculates further on the various possible causes and conditions on generation, including a discussion of the order in which various parts of the embryo are formed during its development. The last chapter of the treatise returns to teleology to consider the utility of both the egg and the semen of the rooster. (See DSB for a long account of this book.) Although published posthumously, the De formatione ovi et pulli was written before the De formato foetu (1604). It was printed in the same sumptuous format. Needham describes the illustrations as “beautiful and accurate”, and they are remarkable for their accuracy and detail, obtained without any magnification. Needham, History of embryology, pp. 87–90. See also Adelmann, The embryological treatises of Hieronymus Fabricius of Aquapendente. Norman Catalogue 752.
First Italian Monograph on Rhinoplasty
31.
FABRIZI, Paolo. Sopra Alcuni Punti Relativi alla Rinoplastia. Tipografia Caisson e Compagni, 1856.
Nizza [Nice]:
8vo, 67 pages, 2 plates (one engraved, and one lithographed and folding). Modern wrappers, fine copy. PRESENTATION COPY, inscribed by the author on the half-title to Dr. Bavebacourt(?). £750 Second edition, the first having appeared in 1841 at Malta, where the author practised. Although Fabrizi was not the first Italian surgeon of the modern period to perform a rhinoplasty (he had at least two predecessors in Canella and Signorini), his treatise (according to Zeis in the chapter on rhinoplasty) is the earliest separate Italian monograph on rhinoplasty, and one of the few Italian treatises on the subject in a period when it was dominated by German and French surgeons. Zeis continued... 17
Item 31 (slightly enlarged)
18
Index 781: “Fabrizi used the Italian method, but with the difference that he took the skin from the forearm near the elbow.” Rare. NUC records 2 copies of this edition (but notes only one plate), and 2 copies of the first.
32.
FILIPANI, Fulvio. Della Malattia, e Morte della Ch. Mem. del Signor Cardinale Luca Melchiorre Tempi e della sezione anatomica del suo cadavere ragionamento presentato al Nobilissimo Signor Marchese Luigi Tempi... In Roma: Appresso il Bernabo’, e Lazzarini, 1762. 4to, pp. (viii), 17, (3)blank. Modern wrappers, uncut. £250 SOLE EDITION (?). On the last illness of Cardinal Luca Tempi (1688–1762), and on the postmortem performed on him.
33.
FORSYTH, William. A Treatise on the Culture and Management of Fruit-Trees; in which a new method of pruning and training is fully described. To which is added, a new and improved edition of “Observations on the Diseases, Defects, and Injuries, in all Kinds of Fruit and Forest Trees:” with an account of a particular method of cure, published by order of the government. The second edition, with additions. London: Printed for T.N. Longman and O. Rees... 1803. 8vo, pp. xxvii, 523, and 13 engraved plates (12 folding). Half-title, small woodcut on p. 484. Contemporary half calf, flat spine gilt, brown morocco label (extremities slightly worn). Some pale foxing (more so on the first few leaves), but a nice copy. £200 Second edition. Forsyth was a significant figure in the horticulture of the eighteenth century. “His interest in the improvement of diseased and decayed fruit trees led him to develop and promote his own ‘plaister’, a paste whose application would, he asserted, cause new wood to grow and bind to the old. His invention came to the notice of those charged with procurement of sound wood, particularly oak, for naval use, and after preliminary investigation he was paid £1500 to reveal the composition of this mixture. A second payment, to follow successful trials, was, however, never made” (ODNB). His book of 1791 together with correspondence on the subject was incorporated into this book on fruit trees. Fussell, More Old English Farming Books, pp. 150–151.
34.
FOURCROY, [Antoine François]. Système des Connaissances Chimiques, et de leurs applications aux phénomènes de la nature et de l’art. Paris: Baudouin,... Brumaire An IX [–X, 1800–1802]. 11 volumes, 8vo. Volume 11 printed partly on light blue paper (pale stain in upper margin). Contemporary tree sheep, flat spines richly gilt with red and green morocco labels, gilt borders, marbled endpapers, a beautiful set. Several patches of worm damage (affecting the surface of the leather only) on covers, three patches of worm damage on covers of vol. 9 and 10 with small areas of leather missing, small hole near foot of spine of vol. 4. Stamp of Baron Reille on half-titles. £1800 FIRST EDITION, octavo issue, of Fourcroy’s magnum opus, the most complete textbook on chemistry that had yet appeared. “This great treatise contained more information than any previously published, and was not intended for beginners, but for those who wished to make a thorough study of chemistry” (Smeaton). It was planned in four parts, theory, history, practice, and the application of chemistry to the explanation of natural phenomena and to the arts, or practical science. “It is particularly interesting to note that Fourcroy regarded the history of chemistry as an integral part of the subject, without which recent developments could not be properly appreciated” (Smeaton).
continued... 19
The work was issued simultaneously in octavo format, in which the index volume (Table alphabétique et analytique) was issued in 1802 as the eleventh volume, and in quarto format in six volumes. The present copy is in octavo format, and is an exceptionally nice copy in a lovely binding. Cole 480. Neville I, p. 472. Partington III, p. 538, III. Smeaton, Fourcroy, pp. 76–77; bibliography nos. 64 and 66. There were no other French editions.
35.
FRACASTORO, Girolamo. Syphilis. Sive Morbus Gallicus. Londini: Apud Jonam Bowyer... 1720. 4to, 2 leaves (blank), pp. (viii), 69, 1 leaf (blank), fine engraved frontispiece portrait by Vertue. Woodcut rose device on title, engraved headpiece to the dedication, woodcut tailpiece. Contemporary sprinkled calf (joints neatly repaired), spine gilt (but dull), gilt roll-tooled border on sides, gilt edges, marbled endpapers. Some minor spotting, paper very slightly browned in the margins, but a very good copy. £400 “This sumptuously printed edition of Fracastoro’s poem is an excellent example of the best English typography of the period, and is as fine as anything that came from Bowyer’s scholarly press” (Baumgartner & Fulton, Bibliography, 19). This was the first separate printing of the Latin original in England. It was edited by Charles Peters, dedicated to Richard Mead, and is taken directly from the first edition. See G&M 2364, the first edition (Verona, 1530): “The most famous of all medical poems. It epitomized contemporary knowledge of syphilis, gave to it its present name, and recognized a venereal cause. Fracastorius refers to mercury as a remedy.”
36.
FREUD, Sigmund. Zur Kenntniss der Cerebralen Diplegien des Kindesalters (im Anschluss an die Little’sche Krankheit). Leipzig und Wien [Vienna]: Franz Deuticke, 1893. 8vo, 3 leaves, 168 pages, 2 folding tables. Contemporary half plum cloth. Ends of spine slightly worn and lower joint torn (but the hinge still strong), a very good, fresh copy. Signature of Dr. Leopold Oser (1839–1910), stamps of Dr. R. Hofstätter (1883–1970) and Dr. Gerhard Krebs on front endpapers. £950 FIRST EDITION. “A companion to Freud and Rie’s earlier clinical study of the unilateral paralyses of children, completing Freud’s investigation of all forms of childhood paralysis. The case histories were divided into four groups: (1) general and cerebral spasticity (“Little’s disease”), (2) paraplegic spasticity from bilateral cerebral lesion, (3) centralized chorea and bilateral athetosis, and (4) bilateral spastic hemiplegia. Freud showed that each of these afflictions could be caused either by congenital factors, factors active during birth, or factors subsequently acquired” (Norman catalogue F23).
The Most Celebrated Herbal
37.
FUCHS, Leonhard. De Historia Stirpium Commentarii Insignes... Basileae [Basel]: In Officina Isingriniana, 1542. Folio, pp. (xxviii), 896, (4). Printer’s device on title and last leaf, woodcut portrait of Fuchs on verso of title, woodcut portraits of the artists on penultimate leaf, and 509 full-page woodcuts in the text. Seventeenth century French calf, panelled in gilt with double gilt fillet, spine gilt in compartments (rebacked preserving most of the original backstrip, corners repaired, sides somewhat marked and rubbed). Some very minor foxing and finger soiling in the fore-edge margins, but a fine copy. Purchase note on front pastedown of Dr. Louis Morin in Paris on 12th June 1672. £46,000 FIRST EDITION of Fuchs’s celebrated herbal. This work effected a revolution in the natural sciences comparable to that of Copernicus in astronomy and Vesalius in anatomy, both of which were published the following year, 1543. It was part of the pioneering efforts of Fuchs, Brunfels continued... 20
Item 35, Vertue’s portrait from Bowyer’s edition of Fracastoro
21
and Bock that earned them the title of the “German fathers of botany”. All three partook of a reforming zeal, partially religious in origin, to correct botanical knowledge, which had mostly been in the hands of itinerant and illiterate herbalists. To effect this reform accurate illustration and identification was the first requirement and it was to this task that Fuchs addressed himself. Fuchs employed the best artists then available in Basel: Albrecht Meyer did the drawings, Heinrich Füllmaurer transferred them to the woodblocks, and they were cut by Veit Rudolph Speckle. All three are depicted in the book, the first time that book illustrators are themselves portrayed and named. These illustrations set a new standard for botanical depiction and were some of the most influential in botanical history, being copied for innumerable works well into the 18th century. Some forty species are illustrated for the first time, including several American plants such as maize and the pumpkin. The herbals of Brunfels and Fuchs “have rightly been ascribed importance in the history of botany, and for two reasons. In the first place they established the requisites of botanical illustration — verisimilitude in form and habit, and accuracy of significant detail... Secondly they provided a corpus of plant species which were identifiable with a considerable degree of certainty by any reasonably careful observer, no matter by what classical or vernacular names they were called” (Morton, History of Botanical Science). Printing and the Mind of Man 69. Dibner 19. Horblit 33b. Hunt 48. Norman catalogue 846. Parkinson, Breakthroughs, p. 37. Stillwell 640. Sparrow, Milestones, 72.
The Smallest Printed Scientific Book
38.
GALILEI, Galileo. Galileo a Madama Cristina di Lorena (1615). Tipogr. Salmin, 1896 [Colophon: May 1897].
Padova [Padua]:
19mm. x 13mm. (page size), 1 leaf (woodcut portrait of Galileo), pp. 205, (2). The imprint is on the verso of the title. Inscription on portrait page. Contemporary morocco, gilt, original slipcase. £2800 First published in 1636 (outside Italy and twenty-one years after it was written) as the NovAntiqua, this letter to Cristina, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, is Galileo’s argument for the freedom of science from theological interference. It is “a superb manifesto of the freedom of thought... Its purpose was to silence all theological objections to Copernicus. Its result was the precise opposite: it became the principal cause of the prohibition of Copernicus, and of Galileo’s downfall” (Koestler). Galileo argued “that neither the Bible nor nature could speak falsely, and that the investigation of nature was the province of the scientist, while the reconciliation of scientific facts with the language of the Bible was that of the theologian” (DSB). The year after it was written Copernicus’s De revolutionibus was placed on the Index of forbidden books, and Galileo was himself summoned before the Inquisition. This tiny book is one of the most famous miniature books in existence, and probably the smallest printed scientific book. At one time it was the smallest book printed with movable type. It is set in the exceedingly small “occhio di mosca” (fly’s eye) Dantino type created by the Salmin press for their complete edition of Dante. Welsh, A bibliography of miniature books, 2935. Spielmann, Catalogue of the library of miniature books, 161. Bondy, Miniature books, pp. 95–96. Not in Cinti. First Proof of Animal Electricity
39.
[GALVANI, Luigi.] Dell’ Uso e dell’ Attiva dell’ Arco Conduttore nelle Contrazioni dei Muscoli. ([Bound with:] [ALDINI, Giovanni.] Supplemento at trattato dell’ uso e dell’ attiva dell’ arco conduttore nelle contrazioni de’ muscoli.) Bologna: a S. Tommaso d’Aquino, 1794. 2 works in 1 volume, small 4to, pp. 168; 23, (1). Some very light foxing. Modern marbled wrappers, uncut. £15,500
continued... 22
FIRST EDITION, including the very rare and important supplement, containing the first published description of Galvani’s electrical experiments without metals. “The anonymous tract Dell’ arco conduttore nelle contrazione dei muscoli is the rarest and most important of all the published documents in the history of animal electricity, since it describes for the first time [Galvani’s] second experiments without metals, which established the existence of electrical forces within living tissues” (Fulton & Cushing). Galvani showed that convulsive contractions could be produced merely by touching nerve to muscle, thus demonstrating unequivocally and for the first time the existence of animal electricity. The description of the crucial experiment, which was probably performed at Aldini’s suggestion, occurs on pages 5–7 of the supplement. G&M 594.1. Fulton & Stanton, Galvani, 24. Dibner, Galvani – Volta, 1952, pp. 20–21, providing an English translation (pp. 50–51), and the comment: “Both works are extremely rare, there being only five known copies of the supplement.” Not in the Wheeler Gift or the Ronalds Collection, nor in BMC.
40.
GAMGEE, [Joseph] Sampson. On the Treatment of Wounds and Fractures: clinical lectures. Second edition. London: J. & A. Churchill,... 1883. 8vo, pp. (vii), ix, 364, addendum slip, figures in the text. Churchill’s adverts dated March 1883 bound in at the end. Slight spotting on the first and last leaves. Original brown cloth, dark brown endpapers. Label clumsily removed from front pastedown, and faint traces of a label removed from the upper cover, otherwise a very good copy. £150 This book is a consolidated second edition of Gamgee’s On the treatment of fractures (1871), and On the treatment of wounds (1878), reworked and with previously unpublished material added. At the end is a 3-page addendum on absorbent cotton wool. “The use of cotton wool was first suggested to him by reading Mathias Mayor’s La chirurgie simplifiée, Brussels, 1842; but its improved manufacture in an antiseptic condition was largely due to his [Gamgee’s] suggestions” (DNB).
41.
GILLES DE CORBEIL (Aegidius Corboliensis). Carmina de urinarum indiciis. [Colophon:] Venetiis [Venice]: i[m]pressus p[er] Benardinum [de Vitalibus] Venetum expensis d. Jeronymi Duranti. die. 16. mensis februarii 1494. 4to, 77 leaves (of 78, lacking the final blank). With the initial blank leaf, Gothic letter, 43 lines, initial spaces with guide letters. Careful restorations in some upper corners or margins affecting text only on S4 but without loss, a few small stains in lower margin, faint trace of an old library stamp removed from last page. Modern dark red calf, inner gilt dentelles. £6800 FIRST COMBINED EDITION of the author’s De urinis and De pulsibus, both of which had been published separately once before (in 1483 and 1484 respectively). This edition was edited by Venantius Mutius, with a commentary by Gentilis de Fuligneo. The twelfth century French physician Gilles de Corbeil transplanted Salernitan medicine to Paris and gave expression to its most important achievements in attractive form. He was a pupil at the medical schools of Salerno and Montpellier, and later went to Paris where he was physician to Philippe Auguste of France (1165–1213). He wrote two works in verse form on the two principal diagnostic tools available to physicians of the time, the pulse and the urine. The Liber de urinis constitutes a compendium of uroscopy mainly on the lines of the Regula urinarum of Maurus. It remained the authoritative textbook on uroscopy until the sixteenth century. Klebs 466.1. Goff A94. Osler 7403. Murphy, The history of urology, p. 38. For a study of Gilles de Corbeil, see Ann. Med. Hist., VII (1925), p. 362.
23
42.
GODFREY [-HANCKWITZ], Ambrose. An Account of the New Method of Extinguishing Fires by Explosion and Suffocation. Introduced by Ambrose Godfrey of Covent-Garden, Chymist. Wherein a description is given of the several machines and their uses... A method easily practicable, certain in its effects, and so universally useful...that his Majesty has been moved to authorize...this happy discovery...by... letters patents. To which is added, a short narrative of Mr. Povey’s behaviour in relation to this useful invention... [London:] Printed in the year 1724. 8vo, pp. xvi, 40. Title within double-ruled border, woodcut headpiece incorporating a portrait of “Guttemberg”, engraved headpiece of a house on fire with Godfrey’s machines, woodcut tailpieces and initials, a fine copy. 20th-century quarter brown morocco and brown cloth sides. £1300 FIRST EDITION. This work is an exposition of the method invented by Godfrey to extinguish fires by exploding gunpowder inside a barrel of water “impregnated with a certain preparation, an enemy to fire”, and not simply water alone. This method of extinguishing fires by suffocation is currently used to great effect on burning oil-wells and similar fires. A description of the device itself is followed by directions for its application. On pp. 4–6 Godfrey reports on two highly successful full-sized demonstrations of his invention in 1723, at the first of which several members of the Royal Society were present. The last section consists of accusations against Charles Povey of Hempstead whose design of a “watch engine” was purportedly stolen from Godfrey. This section was omitted from the second edition, published in 1743. Ambrose Godfrey-Hanckwitz (1660–1741), originally from Germany, was for many years employed as operator in the laboratory of Robert Boyle. In 1729 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He later set up his own laboratory where he made and sold the white phosphorous for which he became famous. In the introduction to the present book he expresses his indebtedness to Boyle “for the first hints of the matter whence it was made.” Apart from a paper on phosphorous in the Phil. Trans., this work was Godfrey’s only publication, and is extremely rare. Neville I, p. 537. Partington II, p. 543. Not in Cole.
Item 42, Godfrey
24
43.
GOODALL, Charles. The Royal College of Physicians of London founded and established by law; as appears by letters patents, Acts of Parliament, adjudged cases, &c. And an historical account of the College’s proceedings against empiricks and unlicensed practisers in every princes reign from their first incorporation to the murther of the royal martr, King Charles the First. London: Printed by M. Flesher, for Walter Kettilby,... 1684. 4to, pp. (xii), 288, (52), 305–472, (11) index. Imprimatur leaf before the title, title within ruled border, separate title-page to the Historical Account, text partly in black letter. Nineteenth century calf, sides with blind roll-tooled border, later endpapers. Imprimatur leaf restored in blank areas, minor stain in fore-edge margin of first few leaves. Signature of George Becke, 1857, on blank recto of imprimatur leaf, woodcut allegorical bookplate on verso of title. £1200 FIRST EDITION. “From 1681 a private committee of the college worked behind the scenes to reorder its affairs (minutes of this are in the Sloane collection); from at least 1684 Goodall participated fully in the committee. Goodall published The Royal College of Physicians of London Founded and Established by Law... (1684), which angrily attacked those of a ‘mechanical’ rather than academic medical education, who, he said, had been engaged in the ‘late rebellion’ and never acknowledged the duty they owed to God and their king. It was a persuasive book: though documents were cited selectively, they were quoted fully and accurately... In April 1688 the private committee pulled strings to get a version of Goodall’s book presented personally to the king; the long version was even cited in a legal opinion as evidence for the college’s powers, and much of the crown’s legal and political support for the college under James II’s reign was based on Goodall’s portrayal of this institution... He made many efforts to restore discipline within the college, and helped to shape the controversial plan to institute the college dispensary” (ODNB). Wing G1091.
Modern Locomotion
44.
GORDON, Alexander. An Historical and Practical Treatise upon Elemental Locomotion, by means of steam carriages on common roads... London: Printed for B. Steuart... 1832. [Bound with:] [GURNEY, Goldsworthy.] Mr. Gurney’s Observations on Steam Carriages on Turnpike Roads...and the consequent official report of the House of Commons, Ordered to be printed, 12th October, 1831. London: Baldwin and Cradock, 1832. [And:] HOPKINS, T. Experiments and Observations on Diverging Streams of Air. From the Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester. Manchester: Printed by Henry Smith... 1830. [And:] ROBERTS, Richard ( Mechanist). Outlines of a proposed Law of Patents for Mechanical Inventions. Manchester: Printed by J. Pigot and Son, And:] 1830. [ HOPKINS, Thomas. Wages: or, masters and workmen. Manchester: Alexander Wilkinson,... 1831. [And:] DICK, Maxwell. Description of the Suspension Railway invented by Maxwell Dick. Irvine: Printed by E. MacQuistan, 1830. [And:] MANN, William. A Description of a New Method of Propelling Locomotive Machines, and of communicating power and motion to all other kinds of machinery. By the patentee... London: Published by J. Taylor,... 1830. [And:] TREDGOLD, Thomas (Civil Engineer). A Practical Treatise on Rail-Roads and Carriages... London: Printed for Josiah Taylor, 1825. 8 works in 1 volume, 8vo. Contemporary half calf, a little rubbed, slight wear to head of spine. Library stamp removed from five of the items, a little foxing, and dampstain in the lower corner. £1200
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[1] FIRST EDITION. The best contemporary account of the history of the steam carriage, and the book which embodied the principles of a new mode of travel, namely the harnessing of the power of steam to drive road vehicles. Pp. v, (iii), 192, folding lithographed frontispiece and 13 plates (2 folding) by the author. [2] FIRST EDITION. Gurney’s steam carriages were the first self-propelled road vehicles in regular passenger service, and were operated between Cheltenham and Gloucester by Sir Charles Dance, a letter from whom forms the “Postscript”. Frontispiece + 48 pages. [3] FIRST SEPARATE EDITION. Frontispiece + 20 pages. [4] FIRST EDITION. 23 pages. [5] FIRST EDITION. Two parts, continuously paginated; 32 pages. Not in Kress. [6] FIRST EDITION. An early scheme for a suspended rope-hauled railway, designed to overcome difficulties of terrain. 26 pages, 2 folding plates. [7] FIRST EDITION. Mann’s “new method” of propulsion involved the use of compressed air to a pressure much higher than was previously possible. It was not a practical success, but he did design a carriage with a sufficiently low centre of gravity to ensure stability at speed, a concept not fully understood until the 1920s. 56 pages. Lacks the plate. [8] FIRST EDITION. The first comprehensive work on railway engineering, with Wood’s Practical Treatise on Rail-Roads, published in the same year, a year which also saw the opening of the first railway for public traffic, from Stockton to Darlington. Pp. xi, (i), 184, 4 engraved plates (1 folding). A collection of works printed and assembled at the very beginning of the great change in inland transport, when the first means of mechanical road transport were promoted, but which succumbed to the rise of the railways.
First French Book on Ophthalmology
45.
GUILLEMEAU, Jacques. Traité des Maladies de l’Oeil, qui sont en nombre de cent treize, ausquelles il est suiect... A Monsieur Paré, Conseiller du Roy, & son premier Chirurgien. A Paris: Chez Charles Massé... 1585. Small 8vo, (xviii), 101 [i.e. 99], (1) leaves. Massé’s woodcut device on the title. Old vellum. A fine copy. £14,500 FIRST EDITION. G&M 5818. The first French book on ophthalmology. Regarded by Garrison as the best of the Renaissance books on ophthalmology, this book was one of a tiny handful of works on ophthalmology that existed at that time. The Büchlin and the Alle Kranckheyt der Augen by Leonhart Fuchs had appeared in 1539, and Bartisch’s great Ophthalmoduleia just before Guillemeau’s book in 1583. These were just about the only monographs on the diseases of the eye, any other works, Rungius (1578) for example, being on optics and the theory of vision. Guillemeau’s book is addressed and dedicated to his father-in-law and teacher, Ambroise Paré, who contributed an introductory sonnet. The work comprises nine sections, the first of which is an anatomical description of the eye, and the others are concerned with the diseases and disorders of the eye, the eyelids, and the optic nerve. It is provided with a large index. More substantial than Fuchs, not as ponderous as Bartisch, it was the obvious choice for translation into other languages, and was the first monograph on ophthalmology to achieve an international readership; an English edition appeared only two years later, and a Dutch translation followed. Of the original French there were only two separate editions (the second in 1610), and both are extremely rare. Albert, Norton & Hurtes 941. Becker catalogue 168. Doe, A bibliography of...Paré, 26.
The Standard Work on Paediatrics
46.
HARRIS, Walter. De Morbis Acutis Infantum. Londini: impensis Samuelis Smith, 1689. 8vo, pp. (xv), 146, (2). With the imprimatur leaf before the title and the final leaf of advertisements, title within rules. Contemporary calf, very rubbed, upper joint cracked and held by the cords, ends
continued... 26
of spine worn. Some leaves very slightly browned, but internally a very fresh and clean copy, in a half morocco solander box. Contemporary signature of Thomas Willoughby (FRS) with his purchase price in upper margin of title; bookplate of Harry Friedenwald, historian of Jewish medicine, and presentation inscription on front endpapers. £3500 FIRST EDITION of this famous book on paediatrics, which served for nearly a century as the standard work until finally superseded by Underwood’s Treatise on the diseases of children. Harris anticipated the modern treatment of tetany by using calcium salts in infantile convulsions. For a study of the book see Ann. med. Hist., 1919, 2, 228-240. Harris was physician to William and Mary. G&M 6321. There were at least eighteen editions in various languages, including three different English translations, but this first edition remains extremely rare. Wing H880. Norman Catalogue 994. Still pp. 291–300. Ruhräh pp. 350–364.
47.
HARRIS, Walter. De Morbis Acutis Infantum. Editio secunda, priori auctior. Cui accessit observationes de morbis aliquot gravioribus medicas complectens... London: S. Smith & B. Walford, 1705. Small 8vo, pp. (xxiv), 189, (1), (2) adverts. Title within rules. Faint dampstain in fore-edge margin of some leaves and front endpapers, otherwise a very clean copy. Contemporary panelled calf, spine and edges neatly repaired. £450 Second edition of the previous item. This edition is corrected and greatly enlarged by the addition of Book Two (62 pages) on paralysis, hysteria, epilepsy, diabetes, etc., and a tract on venereal disease.
48.
HEISTER, Lorenz. A General System of Surgery, in three parts. Containing the doctrine and management I. Of wounds, fractures, luxations, tumors, and ulcers, of all kinds. II. Of the several operations performed on all parts of the body. III. Of the several bandages applied in all operations and disorders... The sixth edition, translated from the author’s last edition, greatly improved. London: Printed for W. Innys and J. Richardson... and C. Reymers, 1757. 2 parts in 1 volume, 4to, pp. xvi, 456, 404, (10), (2)adverts, 40 folding engraved plates. Library stamp on recto and verso of title and a few elsewhere, tear in last plate neatly repaired, three plates creased and slightly damaged in the margin, some foxing and slight soiling, but generally a good copy. Good modern half calf antique, spine gilt. £700 Sixth edition in English. See G&M 5576 (first edition, in German, of 1718). The most popular surgical text of the eighteenth century, and one of the best illustrated. It was translated into seven languages, including Japanese. Heister was the first truly scientific surgeon in Germany. He introduced the term “tracheotomy”, and a spinal brace.
49.
HELFERICH, H[einrich]. On Fractures and Dislocations. Translated from the third German edition (1897) with notes and additional illustrations by J[onathan] Hutchinson, Jun. London: The New Sydenham Society, 1899. 8vo, 3 leaves, pp. 162, 68 lithographed plates by Reichhold (all but 4 coloured, 2 folding) with explanatory text, numerous other text illustrations. Original brown cloth, slightly marked, short split in foot of upper joint. Personal stamp on endpaper and half-title, library stamp on verso of title and last page, otherwise a very clean copy. £100 FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH of this richly illustrated atlas. Meynell, The Two Sydenham Societies, 167.
27
50.
HENNEN, John. Principles of Military Surgery, comprising observations on the arrangement, police, and practice of hospitals, and on the history, treatment, and anomalies of variola and syphilis... Second edition, with numerous additions. Edinburgh: Archibald Constable and Co., 1820. 8vo, pp. xii, 1 leaf, pp. 580, (4) adverts, 6 engraved plates. Contemporary half russia, spine neatly repaired, a good clean copy. £425 Second edition. See G&M 2162 (first edition of 1818). Garrison remarked that this book is “a valuable surgical record of the Napoleonic period.” Hennen, an Irishman never without a cigar in his mouth, served in the Peninsular and in Flanders, after which he was appointed deputy inspector of hospitals, and later principal medical officer in the Mediterranean.
Modern Mortar
51.
HIGGINS, Bryan. Experiments and Observations made with a view of improving the art of composing and applying Calcareous Cements and of preparing Quick-lime: theory of these arts: and specification of the author’s cheap and durable cement, for building, incrustation or stuccoing, and artificial stone. London: Printed for T. Cadell,... 1780. 8vo, pp. xi, 233. Half-title. Contemporary speckled calf (rubbed), spine neatly repaired, initials of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall on sides, a few leaves unopened. A little spotting on the half-title and last leaf, otherwise a good copy. £800 FIRST EDITION (the true first edition; see Cole 642 for details regarding how to determine the first edition from the reprint which was issued in 1796 or later. Cole himself did not own the first edition). Higgins took out a patent for an artificial cement more than forty years before Joseph Aspdin’s of October 21, 1824, which is often cited as the first. In this book he gives an account of his cement, and of his many chemical experiments into the composition of durable and strong cements, his goal being to discover a cement as hard and durable as that used by the Romans. Higgins is one of a handful of scientists who are known to have lectured to the general public on chemistry in the eighteenth century, Joseph Priestley being one of his pupils in 1775. See Partington, III, pp. 727–736.
52.
HOLLÄNDER, Eugen. Plastik und Medizin. Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke, 1912. Small folio, pp. viii, 576, (8)adverts, frontispiece, and numerous text illustrations. Original half cloth and pictorial boards, uncut and largely unopened. £225 FIRST EDITION. G&M 6607. One of the superbly produced books by Holländer on various aspects of the history of medicine — this is on the medical aspects of sculpture.
53.
HUMBOLDT, Alexander von. Kosmos. Entwurf einer physischen Weltbeschreibung. Stuttgart und Tübingen: J.G. Cotta’scher Verlag, 1845 [–1862]. [And:] Atlas zu Alex. v. Humboldt’s Kosmos, in zweiundvierzig Tafeln mit erläuterndem Texte. Herausgegeben von Traugott Bromme. Stuttgart: Verlag von Krais & Hoffmann, [1851]. 5 volumes in 6, 8vo (text), and atlas in oblong 4to; over 3600 text pages; atlas: 2 leaves + 136 pages, and 43 chromolithographed thematic maps (including no. 6 in 2 states, see below). Text volumes: some foxing (mostly very light); bound in contemporary half roan (vols. 4 and 5 slightly different, being later). Atlas: bound in contemporary brown half roan, joints repaired. Old library stamp on titles of text volumes, an excellent set. £2000
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FIRST EDITION, complete and in the original de luxe bindings, of the book which Humboldt considered to be his life’s work. It contains a complete survey of the physical sciences and their relation to each other. In Humboldt’s own words, it intended “to represent in one work the whole material world, everything we know today of the phenomena of the celestial spaces and of life on earth.” Because of the rapidly increasing growth in scientific knowledge later in the nineteenth century, this was the last time that such a survey could be undertaken by one man, or perhaps even by one book. The book “gave a strong impetus to scientific exploration throughout the nineteenth century, inspiring, for example, the voyage of the Beagle, with Darwin aboard as the ship’s naturalist...” (Downs). Humboldt died before completing the fifth and final volume containing the index and bibliography. Nevertheless the index was prepared according to his specifications, and he credited each contemporary to whom he felt indebted. The work cites over 9,000 sources and is thus an important reference for the history of science. Because the index appeared four years after volume 4, many sets of the first edition lack the important final volume. Not only is this set complete in all respects, but the atlas has plate 6 in two states: the first is the original, and the second revised by the author. All the volumes are in their original de luxe issue bindings; in such a state this work is very uncommon. Printing and the Mind of Man 320. Downs, Landmarks in science (1982), 49.
Scientific Dentistry
54.
HUNTER, John. The Natural History of the Human Teeth: explaining their structure, use, formation, growth, and diseases. The second edition. London: Printed for J. Johnson, 1778. [And:] A Practical Treatise on the Diseases of the Teeth; intended as a supplement to the Natural History of those parts. London: Printed for J. Johnson, 1778. 2 parts in 1 volume, 4to, pp. (vii), 128; (vi), iv, 128, (8)index, 16 leaves and 16 fine engraved plates. Half-titles. Original boards, new paper spine and corners neatly repaired, uncut, modern bookplate. Neat repair to upper corner of first title, wormtrack in upper margin of a few leaves (restored on 4 leaves), upper edge of a few leaves dust-soiled, otherwise an excellent, clean copy. £4250 FIRST COMPLETE EDITION, having both parts (second edition of the Natural History, first edition of the Practical Treatise). G&M 3675 (first edition of the Natural History) and 3676. These two works revolutionised the practice of dentistry, placing what had been an empirical art on a basis of scientific observation, and providing a foundation for later dental research. The Natural History is a detailed study of the mouth, jaws and teeth, with exceptionally accurate plates. Hunter correctly understood the growth and development of the jaws and their relation to the muscles of mastication. He coined the term cuspids, bicuspids, molars, and incisors. He devised appliances for the correction of malocclusion. He described the various stages of inflammation of affected teeth, and gave an accurate description of periodontal disease. Russell, British anatomy, 434 and 433. Guerini, History of dentistry, pp. 318–321. This second edition of the Natural History consists of the sheets of the first edition (1771) but with the halftitle and title, dated 1778 and with “The second edition” added, reset. The two works are normally found in this form; the first edition of the Natural History is very rare, especially bound with the second part.
55.
HUNTER, William. An Anatomical Description of the Human Gravid Uterus, and its Contents. London: Printed for J. Johnson,...and G. Nicol,... 1794. 4to, pp. xii, 88. With the half-title. Some very light browning of the edges of the paper. Good modern half calf antique. Early signature of W. Sanders on title. £2500
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FIRST EDITION. G&M 6157.1, the text to accompany Hunter's magnum opus, the Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus, published twenty years earlier. Matthew Baillie completed and published Hunter’s manuscript after his death, and it represents Hunter’s principal anatomical text, his other published anatomical works being papers or collections of papers. It is rarely seen for sale. Russell, British Anatomy, 457. Norman Catalogue 1126.
Photosynthesis
56.
INGENHOUSZ, Jan. Experiments upon Vegetables, discovering their great power of purifying the common air in the sun-shine, and of injuring it in the shade and at night. To which is joined, a new method of examining the accurate degree of salubrity of the atmosphere. London: Printed for P. Elmsly,...and H. Payne... 1779. 8vo, pp. lxviii, 302, (17), 1 folding engraved plate. Contemporary half calf, red morocco label on spine, sides a little rubbed, short crack at ends of upper joint. Paper a little browned, otherwise an excellent copy. Armorial bookplate of Westport House. £2200 FIRST EDITION. The discovery of photosynthesis and plant respiration. “In the summer of 1771 Joseph Priestley had found that plants could restore air that had been made unfit for respiration by combustion or putrefaction... Ingenhousz established that only the green parts of a plant can ‘restore’ the air, that they do this only when illuminated by sunlight, and that the active part of the sun’s radiation is in the visible light and not in the heat radiation. In addition, he found that plants, like animals, exhibit respiration, that respiration continues day and night, and that all parts of the plant – green as well as nongreen, flowers and fruit as well as roots – take part in the process” (DSB). Ingenhousz thus proved that animal life is dependent ultimately on plant life, a discovery of fundamental importance in the economy of living things. Grolier One Hundred (Science), 55. Dibner, Heralds of science, 29. G&M 103 (biology) and 145.52 (ecology). Duveen p. 305. Partington, III, p. 278 et seq. Sachs, History of botany, pp. 494–495.
57.
[JONES, Sir Robert.] The Robert Jones Birthday Volume. A collection of surgical essays. London: Oxford University Press, 1928. Large 8vo, pp. xii, 434, 1 coloured plate, numerous text illustrations, addendum slip on p.13. Signature and library label on front endpaper, library stamp on half-title, title and several other pages. Original red cloth, a few small nicks in ends of spine and upper joint, otherwise a good copy. £140 FIRST EDITION, compiled in honour of Sir Robert Jones’s seventieth birthday, and edited by H.A.T. Fairbank, W.R. Bristow and Harry Platt. The book consists of a preface by Sir Berkeley Moynihan, and twenty-four original papers by leading orthopaedic surgeons. Two of special note are Orthopaedics before Stromeyer by E. Muirhead Little, and Dissociation of Bone Growth by Murk Jansen, G&M 4395: “Jansen’s theory of dissociation of bone growth.”
58.
KIRKLAND, Thomas. An Inquiry into the Present State of Medical Surgery; including the analogy betwixt external and internal disorders; and the inseparability of these branches of the same profession. London: Printed. Sold by J. Dodsley...and William Dawson,... 1783 [–1786]. 2 volumes, 8vo, pp. (ii), iv, ii, (iv), 500; iv, (iv), 576, (2) errata, 1 engraved plate. Engraved coatof-arms on the first page of dedication. Early library inscription on both title-pages, some light browning. Modern speckled calf, a good set. The two volumes are not quite uniform (vol. 2 slightly taller), but neither was the only other set that I have had (a presentation copy). £650
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FIRST EDITION, but the two volumes include Kirkland’s earlier works, “now formed into regular essays” (Preface). They include essays on the brain and nerves (three), inflammation (including gout and ophthalmia), abcesses, gangrenes, and amputation. The second volume begins with a defence of the doctrines presented in the first part of the first volume.
59.
KIRKLAND, Thomas. Observations upon Mr. Pott’s General Remarks on Fractures, &c. in three letters to a young surgeon intending to settle in the country. With a postscript, concerning the cure of compound dislocations; in which the usual method of treating wounds of the tendons and ligaments is briefly considered. London: Printed for T. Becket and P.A. De Hondt, in the Strand. 1770. [Bound with:] An Appendix to the Observations upon Mr. Pott’s General Remarks on Fractures. London: Printed for T. Becket and P.A. De Hondt, in the Strand. 1771. 2 works in 1 volume, 8vo, 1 leaf, pp. iii, (i), 90; 2 leaves, pp. v–ix, (i) blank, 11–31, 1 leaf (adverts), 1 engraved plate of the humerus and the hip joint. Without the half-title to the Observations, but with the half-title to the Appendix. Title and last page of the first work soiled, foxing in the second work. Modern quarter calf, the original stab-holes visible in the first work. £550 FIRST EDITIONS. In the first work, Kirkland takes issue with Pott over three aspects of his treatment of fractures and dislocations. The appendix is to the third letter, specifically on dislocations of the hip.
60.
LE BLANC, [Louis]. Nouvelle Méthode d’Opérer les Hernies. A laquelle on a joint un essai sur des hernies rares et peu connues, de M. Hoin... A Paris: Chez Guillyn,... 1768. [Bound with:] Réfutation de quelques réflexions sur l’opération de la hernie, insérées dans le quatrieme volume des Mémoires de l’Académie Royale de Chirurgie. A Londres: et se trouve à Paris, Chez Guillyn,... 1768. 2 works in 1 volume, 8vo, pp. xvi, 477, (2), 2 folding engraved plates; pp. 14, (2) blank. Engraved vignette on p. 1. Contemporary mottled sheep, spine gilt in compartments, red morocco label, marbled endpapers, head of spine and tips of three corners worn, otherwise a very good, clean copy. £450 Second edition of Le Blanc’s monograph on hernia. Le Blanc was professor of surgery at Orléans and surgeon at the Hôtel-Dieu, and made a speciality of improving the operation for hernia. According to Hirsch, the first edition was published at Orléans in 1766, but I can find no copy of that edition. The Bibliothèque Nationale has an edition published by Pancoucke in Paris in 1767 not recorded in other major collections, but does not have the present edition. The Réfutation is not normally found with the main work.
61.
LE DRAN, Henri François. Osmont, 1742.
Traité des Operations de Chirurgie.
Paris: Charles
8vo, pp. (viii), 570 [i.e. 580], (2), 1 folding plate. Le Dran’s MS monogram (?) on title as in the Wellcome copy. Title and last leaf slightly soiled and corners worn. Contemporary sprinkled calf, neatly rebacked, endpapers replaced, good copy. £425 FIRST EDITION of this standard surgical textbook by one of the great Parisian masters and celebrated teachers. It includes descriptions of the operations for hernia, amputation, lithotomy, hare-lip, wounds of the head, whitlow, etc. etc.
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62.
LISTER, Joseph, Baron. Contributions to Physiology and Pathology. From the Philosophical Transactions.—Part II. for 1858. London: Printed by Taylor and Francis... 1859. Large 4to, 1 leaf, pp. 607–702, 2 lithographed plates (1 chromolithographed) from drawings by Lister. Original buff wrappers (slight wear to ends of spine, upper wrapper detached). £950 OFFPRINT. G&M 2298, the third paper, On the early stages of inflammation, one of Lister’s most valuable researches. “This offprint contains three closely related papers on inflammation — ‘An inquiry regarding the parts of the nervous system which regulate the contractions of the arteries’, ‘On the cutaneous pigmentary system of the frog’, and ‘On the early stages of inflammation’ — the fruit of a year’s intensive research undertaken to determine whether inflammation was an active or passive process... The third and most important of these papers records the earliest stages produced in a frog’s web by such irritants as hot water and chloroform; the remaining two papers contain original observations on nervous control of artery diameter and on the relationship between inflammation and pigmentation changes in the frog. Lister’s results led him to conclude that inflammation was an active principle... Lister always believed — mistakenly but sincerely — that these three papers on inflammation were his most important work, eclipsing even his introduction of antiseptic techniques into surgical practice” (Norman). Norman catalogue 1363.
63.
LISTON, Robert. Elements of Surgery. London: Printed for Longman,... [c. 1832]. 3 parts in 1 volume, 8vo, 2 leaves, pp. (vii)–xv, 318, (2) blank; (v)–vii, 334, (1); (v)–viii, 409. Contemporary red half calf, edges rubbed, short crack at top of upper joint, traces of a bookplate removed, pencilled signature of D. Newman on free endpaper. Some foxing on the first and last leaves and endpapers, but a good copy. £400 FIRST EDITION, undated issue. The first English surgical textbook to devote considerable discussion to various plastic procedures. The second of Liston’s great textbooks, his Practical Surgery published a little later in 1837, contained an entire chapter devoted to plastic surgery. See the Zeis Index 593 for the present book, and numerous other references for Liston’s other works. “In his day Liston was the most dexterous and resourceful surgeon in the British Isles. He was the first in the country to remove the scapula and the first, on 21 Dec. 1846, to perform a major operation with the aid of an anaesthetic” (G&M 3328, the Practical Surgery).
Extra-Illustrated
64.
[MACMICHAEL, William.] Albemarle-Street. 1827.
The Gold-Headed Cane.
London: John Murray,
8vo, 4 leaves, pp. 179, (1). With woodcuts in the text. Extra-illustrated with 98 engraved plates (1 folding). Later full blue calf by Arthur S. Colley (neat repair to upper joint), spine gilt in compartments with gilt centres and two red morocco labels, sides panelled in gilt with gilt centrepiece of the goldheaded cane, inner gilt dentelles, marbled endpapers, a.e.g. A very attractive copy. £900 FIRST EDITION. G&M 6709: “This charming ‘autobiography’ tells of the adventures of the famous gold-headed cane, successively in the possession of Radcliffe, Mead, Askew, William and David Pitcairn, and Baillie, and then retired to a glass case in the library of the Royal College of Physicians of London. Besides good biographies of the several owners of the cane, the book gives interesting information on the condition of medicine in England in the eighteenth century.” A most unusual and particularly richly extra-illustrated copy, with nearly one hundred additional illustrations, mostly portraits and views, including some of London buildings, and Hogarth’s “Consultation of Physicians”.
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65.
MAGENDIE, F[rançois]. [1] Mémoire sur le Vomissement... Suivi du rapport fait à la classe par MM. Cuvier, Humboldt, Pinel et Percy. Paris: Crochard, 1813. [Bound with:] [2] Recherches Physiologiques et Cliniques sur l’emploi de L’Acide Prussique ou HydroCyanique dans le traitement des maladies de poitrine, et particulièrement dans celui de la phthisie pulmonaire. Paris: Méquignon-Marvis, 1819. [Bound with:] [3] Mémoire sur quelques découvertes récentes relatives aux fonction du Système Nerveux... Paris: Méquignon-Marvis, 1823. 3 works in 1 volume, 2 leaves (the first blank), 48 pages; 72 pages; 2 leaves, 25 pages, 1 leaf (adverts). Library stamp on first title, title and last few leaves of first work spotted, otherwise good copies. Nineteenth century half calf, worn, joints cracked. Bookplate of H.F. Norman. £295 [1] FIRST SEPARATE EDITION. G&M 985: “Physiologists still consult Magendie’s classic description of the physiology of deglutition and vomiting. Magendie proved...that the stomach was passive rather than active in vomiting.” Norman Catalogue 1414. [2] FIRST SEPARATE EDITION. “Magendie described the extreme toxicity of prussic acid, a drug already in clinical use for pulmonary diseases, and recommended adopting Gay-Lussac’s method of preparing it to ensure its purity for accurate dosage” (Norman Catalogue 1417). [3] FIRST EDITION. A summary of recent discoveries in neurophysiology. Norman Catalogue 1419.
First Monograph on an Invertebrate
66.
MALPIGHI, Marcello. Dissertatio Epistolica de Bombyce... London: John Martyn and James Allestry, 1669. 4to, 4 leaves (including the initial blank), 100 pages, 2 leaves, and 12 stilted and folding engraved plates. Imprimatur leaf before the title, title within double rule, the 2 leaves of Epistola bound at the end. Minor dust-soiling in the margin of the first and last page and folds of the plates, otherwise a very good copy. Fine modern panelled calf antique, spine richly gilt. £3500 FIRST EDITION. G&M 293. Malpighi’s work on the silkworm represents the first monograph on an invertebrate, and records one of the most striking pieces of research work on his part. He dissected the silkworm under the microscope with great skill and observed its intricate structure. He remarked on the specific apparatuses with which the silkworm is provided, among them the air ducts (tracheae) and the blood duct with a number of pulsating centres (corcula). He also observed the heart, the gut, the glandular system now known as “Malpighian tubules”, and the nerve chain. Before the appearance of this work, the silkworm was believed to have no internal organs. See Cole, History of comparative anatomy, pp. 193–197, describing Malpighi’s monograph on Bombyx as an original contribution of the first importance, and one of the earliest in point of time. Cole adds Réaumur’s comment that it is “a treatise in which one may obtain a greater knowledge of the admirable inner structure of insects than in all the works which have preceded it.” Wing M349. Frati, Bibliografia Malpighiana, 20. Norman Catalogue 1428.
67.
MANEC, Pierre Joseph. A Theoretical and Practical Treatise upon the Ligature of Arteries. Translated from the French...by L.W. Garlick and W.C. Copperthwaite. With notes and appendices... Halifax: Printed for the proprietors... 1832. Large 4to, 3 leaves, pp. (iii)–xii, (13)–227, (1), and 14 fine hand-coloured lithographed plates. Halftitle. Original drab boards and cloth spine (spine neatly repaired, corners worn), new printed paper labels on spine and upper cover. A very good, clean copy. £400 FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH of this superbly illustrated treatise. Manec was surgeon at the Salpetrière and at La Charité. Both English editions were printed in Halifax and are very scarce.
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68.
MAREY, É[tienne Jules]. La Circulation du Sang a l’état physiologique et dans les maladies. Paris: G. Masson,... 1881. 8vo, 2 leaves, pp. iii, 745. Half-title, 357 text figures. Contemporary green half calf (spine faded to brown), spine gilt, red morocco label. Extremities rubbed, but a very good copy. Armorial bookplate of Cuthbert Rudyard Halsall. £280 FIRST EDITION. G&M 783. This classic book marked the culmination of Marey’s study of the subject which began with his doctoral thesis (with virtually the same title) in 1857. “Marey applied the technique of graphical recording to the study of the mechanics and hydraulics of the circulatory system, the heartbeat, respiration, and muscle contraction in general. He analyzed the circulatory and muscular systems in terms of the physical variables, elasticity, resistance, and tonicity. With the graphical trace he established the relationship of heart rate and blood pressure...” (DSB). Bedford catalogue 59. A Complete Set of Mariotte’s Essays
69.
MARIOTTE, Edmé. Essays de Phisique, ou mémoires pour servir à la science des choses naturelles. A Paris: Chez Estienne Michallet... 1679 [–1681]. 4 parts in 2 volumes, 12mo, 2 leaves, pp. 179, (1); 2 leaves, 231 pages, 1 engraved plate; 2 leaves, 72 pages; 4 leaves, pp. 575 [i.e. 759], (1), 18 engraved plates (14 folding). Title taken from the halftitles. Vol. 1 (Essays 1–3): some dampstaining in the first half of the volume, paper a little browned; bound in contemporary sheep, rebacked, spine gilt, corners worn, two early signatures on front endpapers. Vol. 2 (Essay 4): bound in contemporary calf, spine gilt (but a bit rubbed); purchase note dated 1684 on front endpaper and Jesuit ownership inscription on half-title. £2000 FIRST EDITION and a complete set of Mariotte’s Essays — it is very unusual to find the two volumes together. Mariotte was described by Condorcet as “the man who introduced experimental physics into France.” The first essay, De la Végétation des Plantes, written in the form of a letter, is a pioneer work in the scientific explanation of the phenomena of vegetation. In a long discussion of this essay, Sachs (History of Botany, pp. 461–470) says: “It is highly instructive to gather from this letter the ideas of one of the most famous and ablest of the natural philosophers of that day on chemical processes and conditions in the nutrition of plants.” The second essay, De la Nature de l’Air, is famous in the history of physics for gaining Mariotte a share of Boyle’s credit for the discovery and formulation of the volume/pressure law, which in France is known as “Mariotte’s law”. The third essay, Du Chaud et du Froid, includes observations on radiant heat. The fourth, and by far the longest essay, is on light and colours. Mariotte describes his experiments with the prism, and criticises Newton’s theory of colour and Descartes’ mechanical explanations of light. Mariotte “made a notable contribution to atmospheric optics with his explanation of the halos which are occasionally visible round the Sun and Moon, as well as of mock-suns and mock-moons” (Wolf, History of science, I, pp. 271–272). See DSB IX, pp. 117–118 for a long discussion of the second and fourth essays. Pritzel 5814.
70.
MARTIN, Ernest. Histoire des Monstres depuis l’antiquité jusqu’a nos jours. Paris: C. Reinwald... 1880. 8vo, pp. vii, 415. Nineteenth century quarter vellum, marbled sides, uncut, original wrappers bound in. Pale dampstain in upper corner and lower margin of first and last leaves, otherwise a good copy. FIRST EDITION. A comprehensive history, with a 23-page bibliography. £160
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“The Best Optical B ok of the Renaissance”
71.
MAUROLICO, Francesco. Photismi de Lumine, & Umbra ad Perspectivam, & radiorum incidentiam facientes. Diaphanorum partes, seu libri tres: in quorum primo de perspicuis corporibus in secundo de iride: in tertio de organi visualis structura, & conspiciliorum formis agitur. Problemata ad perspectivam, & iridem pertinentia. Omnia nunc primum in lucem edita. Neapoli [Naples]: Ex Typographia Tarquinii Longi, 1611. 4to, pp. (vii), 84. Numerous woodcut diagrams and one woodcut illustration of the anatomy of the eye in the text. Recent vellum, a fine copy. £16,000 FIRST EDITION of the most important work on optics of the sixteenth century. Edited by Cristoforo Clavio, the work’s publication some 35 years after Maurolico’s death was occasioned in part by Galileo’s discoveries concerning the telescope in 1610. It is extremely rare. “The greatest part of his Photismi was already written by 1554, and the whole work was completed at the end of 1567, that is, before the publication of Risner’s Opticae thesaurus. It does not follow that Maurolycus was not acquainted with Alhazen’s book, because he might have read a manuscript of it, or the Alhazen tradition might have reached him indirectly. However, his own Photismi was very different: it was composed in the Greek mathematical style with which he was familiar. Its full title describes its contents: ‘Light concerning Light, consisting of a Chapter on Shadows & Reflection followed by Three Books on Refraction of which the first deals with transparent bodies, the second with the rainbow, the third with the structure of the human eye and the forms of spectacles’. “Maurolycus’ Photismi may have been the best optical book of the Renaissance, but as it remained unpublished it could not exert any influence before 1611” (Sarton, p. 85). “Maurolico [1494–1575] did important work in optics; indeed, according to Libri, ‘it is in his research on optics, above all, that Maurolico showed the most sagacity’ (Histoire, III, 116). The chief record of this research is Photismi de Lumine et Umbra, in which Maurolico discussed the rainbow, the theory of vision, the effects of lenses, the principal phenomena of dioptrics and catoptrics, radiant heat, photometry, and caustics. Maurolico’s work on caustics was anticipated by that of Leonardo da Vinci (as was his research on centers of gravity), but Leonardo’s work was not published until long after Maurolico’s. Libri further characterized the Photismi de lumine et umbra as ‘full of curious facts and ingenious research’, and Sarton suggested that it might be the most remarkable optical treatise of the sixteenth century outside the tradition of Alhazen, or even the best optical book of the Renaissance (Six Wings, 84, 85).” Sarton, Six Wings: Men of Science in the Renaissance, pp. 84–85. Vasco Ronchi, Optics, the science of vision, pp. 39–40. Lindberg, Theories of Vision from Al-Kindi to Kepler, pp. 178–182. Henry Crew (trans.), The Photismi de Lumine of Maurolycus. A Chapter in Late Medieval Optics. Wolf, History of Science, Technology, &c. in the XVIth and XVIIth Centuries, pp. 245–248, showed that Maurolico’s work on optics anticipated that of Kepler in some respects. Riccardi, I, 142 (the 1575 edition that he cites is a ghost.)
Among the Best of the English Medical Classics
72.
MAYOW, John. Tractatus Quinque Medico-Physici. Quorum primus agit de sal-nitro, et spiritu nitro-aero. Secundus de respiratione. Tertius de respiratione foetus in utero, et ovo. Quartus de motu musculari, et spiritibus animalibus. Ultimus de rachitide. Oxonii [Oxford]: E Theatro Sheldoniano, 1674. 8vo, pp. (xxxix), 335, 152, engraved frontispiece portrait and 6 folding engraved plates. Separate title-pages to parts 2–5. Contemporary calf (joints neatly repaired, later red morocco label), pastedowns from a contemporary printed book on optics, a fine copy. £5200 FIRST EDITION. G&M 578 and 2726.2. Five treatises by Mayow, incorporating revised versions of the two on respiration and rickets, previously published as the Tractatus Duo.
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In the first and longest treatise, Mayow gives a chemical history of nitre and spirit of nitre, and of combustion and the effect of respiration on air, concluding that air is composed of two distinct gases. In the second treatise, he perfectly describes the mechanism of respiration, with the movement of the ribs and diaphragm, and makes the discovery of the double articulation of the ribs with the spine. He correctly asserts that the function of breathing is to bring air into contact with the blood. He was the first to locate the seat of animal heat in the muscles, and was the first to make the definite suggestion that it is only a special fraction of the air that is of use in respiration. The third is on the respiration of the foetus in the womb, in which he says that the foetus requires “nitro-aerial particles” just as respiring animals do. “These splendid words... show that, by the time of Mayow, chemical embryology had definitely come into being” (Needham, History of Embryology, pp. 149–153). In the fourth treatise, on muscular motion, “Mayow recorded a case of mitral stenosis, probably the first description” (G&M, confusingly giving the date of the first edition with a note to the second). He contended that muscles contract by contortion, rather than by inflation, and that the active agent is “nitro-aerial particles”, or what was later to be called oxygen. The fifth and last treatise is on rickets, Mayow being the third English writer on the disease, and, next to Glisson, the most often quoted. He gives an accurate summary of the symptoms of rickets and describes his post-mortem findings. He disagrees with Glisson on several points, explaining the curving of bones as impaired growth of muscles compared to the bone, and illustrates it by a tree tied by its top to the ground. Mayow’s Tractatus Quinque “deservedly ranks today with the very best of the English medical classics” (Garrison), and as Osler remarked, it is very scarce. Wing M1537. Lilly, Notable Medical Books, 83. See DNB; DSB; Partington, History of Chemistry, vol. 2, chapter 16, devoted to Mayow and the Tractatus Quinque; Foster, Lectures on the History of Physiology, pp. 185–199; Still, History of Paediatrics, pp. 227–229; Fulton, Two Oxford Physiologists, 113. Neville II, pp. 157–158. Norman catalogue 1474.
Beginning of Abdominal Surgery
73.
McDOWELL, Ephraim. Three Cases of Extirpation of Diseased Ovaria. [In:] The Eclectic Repertory and Analytical Review, vol. VII, pp. 242–244. Philadelphia: Thomas Dobson and Son, 1817. 8vo, pp. viii, 612. Paper browned, severe dampstain on back endpapers and last few pages of index. Original boards, red roan spine, a little rubbed and worn on corners, ownership stamp on Alexander Whaley on endpapers. The whole volume is offered, of which McDowell’s paper occupies pp. 242–244. £650 FIRST EDITION. G&M 6023. The first successful ovariotomy. On Christmas Day, 1809, McDowell removed a cystic ovary weighing twenty-two and one half pounds, performing the operation on a table in his house. “Prior to this date, ovarian cysts had been regarded as incurable, and the few attempts to remove them surgically had always been fatal... ‘McDowell’s contribution was exceptional for two reasons. First he presented a series of cases associated with a respectable success rate (only one death among his first five operations); and second his reports encouraged other surgeons to follow his example’ (Earle, Surgery in America, p. 92)... McDowell’s achievement marked the birth of abdominal surgery” (Norman). Norman Catalogue 1403. Zimmerman & Veith p. 436. Radcliffe, Milestones in midwifery, pp. 70– 71. Speert (America), pp. 175–177. Thoms, Classical contributions, pp. 214–218: “The contributions of McDowell form the fundamental knowledge upon which modern abdominal surgery rests.” This volume is offered with volumes VII and IX of the same journal, in similar state and matching bindings; volume IX contains a second paper by McDowell, Observations on Diseased Ovaria, on pp. 546–553, written in reply to Dr. Henderson’s paper in volume VIII, and describing two further successful cases of ovariotomy.
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Best Incunable Edition The Basis of Modern Pharmacy
74.
MESUE, Johannes (Yuhannah ibn Masawaih). [Opera Medicinalia.] [Colophon:] Impressa Venetiis [Venice:] per Bonetum Locatellum...impensis...Octaviani Scoti... 1495. Folio (318 x 217 mm.), 332 unnumbered leaves. Gothic type, printed in double columns, 66 lines, floriated woodcut white-on-black initials, numerous initials supplied in red or blue, headings underlined in red, large publisher’s woodcut device at end. Contemporary blind-tooled half pigskin over beech boards, lettered in manuscript on upper cover. Upper joint just cracking, one upper corner chipped, old and almost imperceptible repair to fore-edge of upper board, clasps missing, wormtrack in lower inner blank corner of first dozen leaves then diminishing, otherwise a fine copy in a very well preserved contemporary binding. Old armorial bookplate on upper cover, two later bookplates on front pastedown. £34,000 Penultimate and most complete of the incunable editions, and the first to include (as listed on the title-page) the commentary of St. John de Armand on the Antidotarium of Nicolas of Salerno, together with his text, one of the most widely recogniszed pharmacopoeias of the Middle Ages. Also included is the Complementum practicae of Francescus Pedemontanus; a commentary on the Canones of Mesuë by Mundinus, Expositio super canones universales; the Expositio super Antidotarium Mesue by Christophorus de Honestis; the Additiones ad practicam of Petrus de Abano on tumours of the breast and diseases of the stomach and liver; and the Compendium aromatariorum of Saladinus of Ascoli, generally considered the first really modern pharmacopoeia. “The Grabadin [here called the Antidotarium] of Mesuë junior was for centuries the authority on the composition of medicaments. The book was not only in use in practically every European pharmacy but in addition became the basis of the later official pharmacopoeias. The Grabadin is, as Sudhof calls it, ‘the pharmacological quintessence of Arabian therapeutics’ and contains the entire armamentarium of compounded medicines which we owe to the Arabians. The arrangement is like that of the later pharmacopoeias. The compounded medicines are divided into groups according to their forms — confections, juleps, syrups, etc. — the monographs containing directions for the preparation of the respective products and also notes on their medicinal uses” (Kremers & Urdang, History of Pharmacy, pp. 21–22). Klebs 680.14. BMC V, 444. See Garrison, p. 133. Hagelin, Old and Rare Books on Materia Medica, p. 18 (later edition).
75.
MICHELOTTI, Pietro Antonio. De Separatione Fluidorum in Corpore Animali Dissertatio physico-mechanico-medica. Venice: Pinelli, 1721. [Bound with:] [2] BERNOULLI, Johann. De Motu Musculorum, De Effervescentia, & Fermentatione Dissertationes Physico-Mechanicae. Editio secunda priori emendatior. Accedunt Petri Antonii Michelotti Animadversiones X. ad ea, quae Cl. Vir. Jacobus Keill protulit in Tentamine V. quod est de Motu Musculari. De Separatione Fluidorum in Corpore Animali Dissertatio physico-mechanico-medica. Venice: Pinelli, 1721. 2 works in 1 volume, large 8vo, pp. (viii), 362, (1)errata, fine engraved frontispiece and 1 folding engraved plate; pp. (xxiv), 123, (1), 1 folding engraved plate. Some fine engraved and woodcut ornaments in both works. Contemporary paper boards, uncut. Boards somewhat soiled and stained, but internally an excellent copy. £750 [1] FIRST EDITION of Michelotti’s treatise on bodily fluids, here issued with Bernoulli. Both books are beautifully printed. [2] Second editions of the first two works of the great Swiss mathematician Johann Bernoulli, who began his career by studying medicine. The work on fermentation processes (1690) was his first publication, and the work on muscular motion (1694), actually his doctoral dissertation, showed his mathematical inclination despite its medical subject. It reflects the influence of Borelli. To these works, here published together some thirty years after they were written, Bernoulli added Michelotti’s animadversions on James Keill’s book on muscular motion. Roberts & Trent, Bibliotheca mechanica, 35.
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76.
[MIHLES, Samuel, editor.] Medical Essays and Observations relating to the Practice of Physic and Surgery: abridg’d from the Philosophical Transactions, from their first publication down to the present time. The Latin papers are English’d, some occasional remarks are made, and the whole illustrated with necessary copper-plates. London: Printed for J. Newbery... 1745. 2 volumes, 8vo, pp. vii, 464, xv, 4 folding engraved plates; 1 leaf, pp. 471, vii, 5 folding plates. Plate 4 in vol. 1 transposed with that in vol. 2, some foxing and dust soiling on the end leaves and plates principally in the margins. Good modern quarter calf antique, red morocco labels, bookplates. £450 A useful work that includes in a convenient form abriged versions of hundreds of papers that appeared in the Philosophical Transactions up to 1745, some 24 of which are cited in G&M. This set appeared at a time when medical journals were virtually non-existent — only one serious medical journal had been published in England and coincidentally, or perhaps not, had the same title. The editor was the surgeon Samuel Mihles who published his own Elements of Surgery the following year.
77.
MIHLES, Samuel. The Elements of Surgery...adapted to the use of the camp and navy, as well as of the domestic surgeon.... The second edition, altered and considerably augmented with several of the latest improvements in practice and operations. By Alexander Reid. London: Printed for Robert Horsfield,... 1764. 8vo, pp. (xii), 368, (16), 4, 18 folding engraved plates after Heister. A few very pale stains, otherwise a good copy. Contemporary sheep, ends of spine and tips of corners worn, joints cracked but firm, front free endpaper replaced. £575 Second edition (first, 1746) of this scarce manual of surgery. The plates mostly illustrate surgical instruments and operations, bandages, trusses, etc. This edition is dedicated to John Ranby, whose assistant Reid was at the Chelsea Hospital.
All That was Known About the Subject
78.
MILLER, Philip. The Gardeners Dictionary: containing the methods of cultivating and improving the kitchen, fruit and flower garden. As also, the physick garden, wilderness, conservatory, and vineyard... Interspersed with the history of the plants, the character of each genus, and the names of all the particular species... Together with accounts of the nature and use of barometers, thermometers, and hygrometers proper for gardeners... London: Printed for the author; and sold by C. Rivington... 1731. Folio, pp. xvi, (iv), (840), engraved frontispiece and 4 engraved plates (1 folding). Fine engraved headpiece to the dedication to Sir Hans Sloane, woodcut ornaments and initials, 1 engraving in the text on f. ff1v, a few woodcuts in the text. Contemporary panelled calf (a bit marked, neat restoration to ends of spine), red morocco label (one corner chipped). Title-page a little foxed, some small marks, but a nice copy. Early signature of W. Negus of Dalling House (probably William Negus, a prominent landowner of Melton, Suffolk) on the recto of the frontispiece and on the title; also of Richard Wood of Melton. £1200 FIRST EDITION of the first comprehensive dictionary of gardening. Miller was the greatest horticultural authority in Europe whose literary contribution was to gather together all that was known about the subject, so that for the first time everything anyone needed to know about every plant likely to be encountered in an English garden was in one place. All the names given to the same plant were listed together, eliminating confusion. His Dictionary brought order and focus to all the knowledge available at that time; it listed everything, clearly and in alphabetical order, and it developed into the standard work and principal reference book for gardeners around the world. It became an international best seller, and turned Miller into a superstar.
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Miller was head of the most prestigious botanic garden in London, the Chelsea Physic Garden. He developed it into a centre of economic gardening, especially in the dyeing industry. “Under his charge for almost half a century, the Chelsea Physic Garden of the Society of Apothecaries of London came to excel above all others in Europe, the number of its plants increasing fivefold in that time” (ODNB). Fussell, The Old English Farming Books, pp. 123–125.
79.
MORGAGNI, Giovanni Battista. Opuscula Miscellanea quorum non pauca nuncprimum prodeunt,... Venice: Typographia Remondiniana, 1763. 3 parts in 1 volume, folio, pp. vi, (ii), 120; 75; 84. Separate title to each part with an engraved vignette, first title printed in red and black, woodcut ornaments, text in double columns. Perforated library stamp in upper corner of first title with ink cancellation on verso and acquisition number at head of dedication, some light foxing, otherwise a very good copy. Contemporary vellum over boards. £550 FIRST EDITION. A collection of essays and letters on a wide variety of medical subjects, some biographical, some on classical and literary subjects, and some on anatomy, including that of the lacrymal duct, vena cava, etc. Choulant (Bibliotheca medico-historica) holds them in high esteem.
80.
MORTON, Thomas, and William CADGE. The Surgical Anatomy of the Principal Regions of the Human Body. London: Taylor, Walton, & Maberly,... 1850. 8vo, 4 leaves, pp. 371, (5)–24, 25 hand-coloured lithographed plates (18 folding or double page), other text illustrations. Walton & Maberly’s adverts dated August 1856 bound in at end. Original blind-stamped cloth, uncut. Endpapers replaced, slight spotting on a few plates, otherwise a fine and fresh copy. £700 FIRST COLLECTED EDITION, comprising the four works The surgical anatomy of the perinaeum, ...of the groin, ...of inguinal herniae, and ...of the head and neck, axilla, bend of the elbow, and wrist, which were issued separately between 1838 and 1845. Entirely the work of Morton except for one part of the text by Cadge, this collected edition was issued after Morton’s death. “All these works are remarkable, because they are illustrated by his brother Andrew Morton, and mark the revival of an artistic representation of anatomical details” (D’Arcy Power in DNB). The striking plates were drawn and boldly signed by Andrew Morton, a leading London portrait painter, and were lithographed by William Fairland.
81.
[NEEDHAM, John Turbeville.] New Microscopical Discoveries; containing observations, I. On the calamary... II. On the Farina foecandans of plants... III. On the pistil, uterus and stamina of several flowers... IV. On the supposed Embryo Sole found on the bodies of shrimps... V. On Eels or Worms... VI. On several other curious particulars relating to the natural history of animals, plants, &c. London: Printed for F. Needham,... 1745. 8vo, pp. viii, 126, (2) adverts, 6 fine folding stipple-engraved plates by Henry Roberts. The title is a cancel. Plates 5 and 6 are transposed. Contemporary unlettered calf, a bit rubbed and spine slightly worn at head, upper joint just beginning to crack, but an excellent copy. £1500 FIRST EDITION. Needham’s first book, containing some important biological discoveries. “His valuable discoveries have been somewhat overshadowed by the spontaneous generation controversy. In fact he made admirable contributions to the physiology, sexual and general, of cephalopods and cirripedes, he studied pollen grains as analogues of spermatozoa and was the first to see Brownian motion in them, and he described the horned eggs of elasmobranch fishes” (Needham, History of embryology). Cole Library 1491 (indicating that this issue, with the altered title and cancel title leaf, is the later of two which appeared in 1745).
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Remarkable Plates of the Heart
82.
NICHOLLS, Frank. De Anima Medica Praelectio... Editio altera, notis amplioribus aucta. Cui accessit Disquisitio De Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in homine nato et non nato, tabulis aeneis illustrata. Londoni: Excudebat H. Hughs: Prostat venalis apud J. Walter... 1773. 4to, pp. (ii), 103, (1), and 11 remarkable copperplates of the heart and circulation, including one printed in red. Good modern half calf antique. Faint library stamp in the margin of the title and some of the plates, some minor offsetting, otherwise a fine and large copy. Signature of Thomas Freer of Birmingham, 1831, on a binder’s leaf before the title. £1800 Second and better edition, containing the first edition of the Disquisitio. Very rare. The first part of the work, delivered in 1748 as the Lumleian lecture, was first published in 1750, and appears here in an extended form. The second part, the Disquisitio, is Nicholls’s treatise on the motion of the heart and blood in the human body and in the unborn child. It was delivered as the Gulstonian lecture in 1734, but not published until 1773, by which time Nicholls had developed the anatomical techniques for which he was famous, in particular his invention of corroded anatomical preparations. “He demonstrated minute structure of blood-vessels, showed before the Royal Society experiments proving that the inner and middle coat of an artery could be ruptured while the outer remained entire, and thus made clear the method of formation of chronic aneurysm, which had not before been understood. He noticed that the arteries were supplied with nerves, and pointed out that these probably regulated blood-pressure” (DNB). On one plate, the heart is shown set up for a demonstration on a wooden stand or a velvet cushion. Plate 11 is printed in two shades of red to distinguish venous from arterial flow. Russell 637: “The plates are particularly fine.” Not in the Bedford catalogue. Nicholls was a Fellow of the Royal Society, physician to George II, and Richard Mead’s son-in-law.
The Definitive Edition
83.
NIGHTINGALE, Florence. Notes on Hospitals. Third edition, enlarged and for the most part re-written. London: Longman,... 1863. Large 8vo, pp. ix, 1 leaf, pp. 187, 11 folding plans of hospitals, 3 folding samples of forms, and 2 large folding plans of London and Paris. Original dark mauve cloth, uncut. Some very minor foxing and small marks, short tear in spine and ends a little worn, but an excellent copy. £4500 Third and definitive edition. See G&M 1611, the first separate edition of 1859, consisting of 108 pages, and very similar in appearance to Notes on Nursing. “The little book, revolutionary in character, set the seal on Miss Nightingale’s authority on the subject of hospitals, and gave a new direction to their construction” (Sir James Paget in 1859). For this third edition, Miss Nightingale wrote in the preface that it had been “necessary to rewrite the whole of it, and to make so many additions to the matter that it is in reality a new book.” The new edition caused The Lancet to say of it in 1864 that “no one has studied the great subject with which this important book deals so thoroughly as its authoress.” Bishop & Goldie, Bio-bibliography, 101.
District Nursing
84.
NIGHTINGALE, Florence. Organization of Nursing. An account of the Liverpool Nurses’ Training School, its foundation, progress, and operation in hospital, district, and private nursing. By a member of the committee of the Home & Training School. With an introduction, and notes, by Florence Nightingale. Liverpool: A. Holden... London: Longman,... 1865.
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8vo, pp. (viii), 9–103, lithographed frontispiece of the school, and 1 engraved plan. Original limp blue cloth, slightly dull and with faint trace of a label removed from the corner of the upper cover, rebacked, inner hinges reinforced. Library stamp and release stamp on verso of title, evidence of a bookplate removed from the inside front cover. £900 FIRST EDITION. Liverpool was a pioneer city in the training of nurses, and the first district nurse began work there in 1860. “The Liverpool Training School and Home for Nurses was founded by William Rathbone in 1862, after consultation with Miss Nightingale. This was the beginning of a long and fruitful association which was to result in the organization and development of district nursing and workhouse infirmary nursing, both of which were first tried out in Liverpool, and later extended to other parts of the country” (Bishop & Goldie). This scarce work is an account of the founding and operation of the School; it includes an introduction and numerous notes by Florence Nightingale, and is dedicated to her. Bishop & Goldie 14.
First English Work on the Compass
85.
NORMAN, Robert. The Newe Attractive, shewing the nature, propertie, and manifold vertues of the Loadstone; with the declination of the needle, touched therewith, under the plaine of the horizon. Found out and discovered by Robert Norman. London: Reprinted in the Year 1720. 8vo, 1 leaf, pp. iv, (ii), 43. With 4 woodcuts in the text, woodcut head- and tailpieces. Modern quarter calf. Top edge trimmed a little close, but a fine copy. £600 Sixth edition. First published in 1581, this was the first printed book wholly devoted to terrestrial magnetism and the first original English work on the magnetic compass. Robert Norman, a compass maker at Wapping, discovered that a freely floating magnet only orientates itself (as opposed to propelling itself) in a north-south direction, and that it also dips with respect to the vertical. He made the first accurate measurement of the dip, shown in the illustration on p. 17 to be 71° 50’ in London in 1576, the year in which he made the discovery. There were five Elizabethan editions, the last in 1609, all of which are practically unobtainable. The book was not then reprinted until the present edition (also issued as part of William Whiston’s The longitude and latitude found by the inclinatory or dipping needle, London, 1721), which is itself a rare book. Wheeler Gift 66a. See Mottlelay pp. 75–77; Taylor ( ), part II, 29, and part III, 60; Andrewes (ed.), The Quest for Longitude, p. 57.
The “Canal of Nuck”
86.
NUCK, Anton. Adenographia Curiosa et Uteri Foemeninei Anatome Nova. Cum epistola ad amicum, de inventis novis. Lugduni Batavorum [Leiden]: Apud Jordanum Luchtmans, 1691. Small 8vo, 8 leaves (including the engraved title), 152 pages, 14 leaves, and 9 folding engraved plates. Engraved title reinforced in the gutter, tear (7cm.) in the last plate, otherwise a very good copy. Later vellum, bookplate of Herbert McLean Evans. £1800 FIRST EDITION. Anton Nuck (1650–1692), professor of anatomy at Leiden, was distinguished for his investigations of the glands and lymphatics. In this book he first described the lymphatic network of the ovary. On pages 130 et seq. he describes the inguinal canal, called after him the “canal of Nuck”. The volume also contains (pp. 68–69) Nuck’s experiment by which he recognised the homology of the mammalian ovary with that of oviparous animals. Professor Needham calls this “very important, as one of the earliest instances of experimental procedure. He ligatured the uterine horns after
continued... 41
Item 85, Norman. (slightly enlarged)
42
copulation in a dog, and observed pregnancy afterwards, implantation having taken place above the ligature. His conclusion was that the embryo was derived from the ovary and not from the sperm...” G&M 1213. Speert, Obstetric and gynecologic milestones, pp. 95–101. Hagelin, The womans booke, pp. 76–77 (1722 edition). Needham, History of embryology, p. 144. This first edition is rare; it also appeared with a date of 1692, one year later.
87.
ORIBASIUS. Synopseos ad Eustathium filium libri novem: quibus tota medicina in compendium redacta continentur: Joanne Baptista Rasario...interprete. [Colophon:] Venetiis [Venice]: apud Paulum Manutium, Aldi filium, 1554. Small 8vo, 216 leaves. Woodcut Aldine device on title, text printed in italics throughout. Title and last page a bit soiled and stained, some very minor foxing in the text. Eighteenth century Italian marbled boards and sheep spine, ruled in gilt, red morocco label (head of spine slightly worn, short crack at top of lower joint), red edges. From the library of the Royal Society of Medicine, with their stamp on title and front endpaper; large bookplate of John Fletcher on pastedown and a note on Rasario tipped in. £1100 FIRST EDITION. Derived from his larger work Collectorum medicinalium, Oribasius produced this abridged edition or synopsis for his son Eustathius. “In following the medical studies of his son, [Oribasius] had come to realise the necessity for a short text-book...which purposely contained only the essentials of the art of healing and conveyed in concise form the mature experience and independently acquired judgment of the author... The attractive accounts of gymnastics, diet at various ages, education and diseases of children are of especial interest” (Neuburger, p. 303). The Collectorum was the most extensive surviving work of the fourth century Greek physician Oribasius, and comprised excerpts of the more important writings of the Greek physicians. “For the historian of medicine Oribasius is especially important for his role in preserving earlier, more important medical authors, whom we know about, in part, only through his excerpts” (DSB). Choulant, Handbuch, p. 124: “Rare.” The Geology of Kent
88.
PACKE, Christopher. Ankographia [in Greek], sive Convallium Descriptio. In which are briefly but fully expounded the origine, course and insertion; extent, elevation and congruity of all the valleys and hills, brooks and rivers, (as an explanation of a new philosophico-chorographical chart) of East-Kent. Occasionally are interspers’d some transient remarks that relate to the natural history of the country, and to the military marks and signs of Cæsar’s rout thro it, to his decisive battle in Kent. Canterbury: Printed and sold by J. Abree, for the author, 1743. 4to, 1 leaf, 110 pages, 1 leaf (errata and advertisement for the map). Woodcut tailpiece. Contemporary calf, double gilt fillet on sides (head of spine worn, joints cracking but quite firm), marbled endpapers with armorial bookplate on front pastedown. £1200 FIRST EDITION. This book was published to accompany Packe’s “A new philosophicochorographical chart of East-Kent” (1743) which is described by Zittel as “the first geological map of a part of England”. It is a very large engraved chart of East Kent, and Packe emphasises that it is far removed from an ordinary map in that it shows the rise and progress of the valleys and the form of the hills that bound the valleys. Packe used parallel lines on the chart to indicate in which direction the water drained. It was published separately from this book and is advertised on the last page as being imminent. In the “Postscript” (pp. 109–110) is the author’s account of the difficulties encountered in producing the chart, which was to have been printed in two colours. Bound in at the end is a copy of John Clubbe’s The History and Antiquities of the Ancient Villa of Wheatfield in...Suffolk (London, 1758), 31 pages. Challinor, History of British Geology, 29 (the chart) and section 5. Zittel, History of Geology, p.35. Both the chart and this text are very rare.
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89.
PALFIJN, Jan. Description Anatomique des Parties de la Femme, qui servent à la Generation; avec un Traité des Monstres, de leur causes, de leur nature, & de leur differences: Et une description anatomique...de deux enfans nés dans la ville de Gand, capital de Flandres le 28. Avril 1703. &c. &c... Lesquels ouvrages on peut considerer comme une suite de l’Accouchement des Femmes. Par Monr. Mauriceau. A Leide: Chez la veve de Bastiaan Schouten. 1708. 3 parts in 1 volume, 4to, 4 leaves, pp. 128, (xvi), 366, (2) blank, (vi), 7–72, and 11 engraved plates (6 folding). Including the engraved frontispiece, title printed in red and black, numerous other engravings in the text of the second part (some full-page). Nineteenth century half green straightgrained morocco, spine delicately gilt with armorial crest in one compartment, marbled sides, edges and endpapers. Tear along fold of one plate, 2 leaves lightly browned, a nice copy. £1800 FIRST EDITION of Palfijn’s work on the anatomy of the female organs of generation, illustrated with three folding engraved plates, published here with the first editions in French of his book on the deformed twins of Ghent, illustrated with four plates, and of Liceti’s treatise on monsters (G&M 534.52), with many remarkable engravings from the original copperplates. “In April, 1703, in the city of Ghent, twins were born united at the lower part of their bodies which created such a stir that Jan Palfyn on account of his great reputation as an anatomist was selected to dissect them before the magistrate, the directors of the college of medicine and the principal practitioners. A month later another monster was born at Ghent, also dissected by him, in which were found an imperforate anus and vagina together with a double uterus. Palfyn was requested to make a report of his findings, which was published in Flemish in 1703 together with a treatise on the circulation of the blood in the foetus. In 1708 Palfyn published [the present] French edition. This time the two papers were issued with a work on the anatomy of the female organs of generation and a work on monsters, being Palfyn’s rendering into French of Swammerdam’s Miraculum naturae (1672) and Geerhard Blasius’ enlarged edition of Licetus’ remarkable work on monsters (1665)... This thick volume was meant to form a supplement to Mauriceau’s standard textbook on midwifery”(Hagelin, The Womans Booke, pp. 90–93, reproducing three of the illustrations).
90.
PASTA, Andrea. Epistolae ad Alethopilum duae, altera de motu sanguinis post mortem, altera de cordis polypo in dubium revocato. Bergomi [Bergamo:] Ex Typographia Joannis Santini, 1737. 8vo, 1 leaf, pp. 3–82, 3 leaves, 1 engraved copperplate. Contemporary half mottled sheep, red edges. Some minor foxing, but a nice, crisp copy. £280 SOLE EDITION of a rare book. Pasta (1706–1782), a pupil and friend of Morgagni, was a wellknown physician of Bergamo. The first treatise in this book is concerned with the circulation of the blood after death, and the second is on the anatomical status of a polyp in the heart discussed by Kerckring on p. 145 of his Spicilegium anatomicum (1670), and whether it is to be regarded as invasive or, in select cases, normal. Both letters contain numerous references to other writers on pathology, including Morgagni, Malpighi, Bonet, etc.
91.
PASTEUR, L[ouis]. Études sur La Bière, ses maladies, causes qui les provoquent, procédé pour la rendre inaltérable, avec une théorie nouvelle de la fermentation. Paris: Gauthier-Villars,... 1876. 8vo, pp. viii, 387, 4 (adverts), 12 plates, figures in the text. Contemporary cloth-backed marbled boards. A little foxing on the first and last few leaves, otherwise a fine copy. £600
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FIRST EDITION. G&M 2485: “Pasteur resumed his studies on fermentation in 1876, and in this book takes into account the developments in this field since his previous publications on the subject. He described a new and perfect method of preparing pure yeast and acknowledged that a limited quantity of oxygen was important for brewing.” Sparrow, Milestones of Science, 158. Norman catalogue 1658. Neville II, p. 272: “...contains discoveries of fundamental importance in the sciences of biochemistry and bacteriology.”
92.
PEARSON, John. Principles of Surgery, for the use of chirurgical students. Part the first [all published]. London: Printed for the author; and sold by J. Johnson... 1788. 8vo, pp. xx, 2 leaves, pp. 267, (1). Half-title. Short tear in upper margin of title neatly restored, similar short tears in the first leaf of several gatherings. Contemporary half calf, rebacked and corners repaired, sides a bit discoloured and edges rubbed. Early signature (cropped) of “Mr. Harri[son?]” in upper corner of title; signature and armorial bookplate of Samuel Merriman M.D. (1771–1852, obstetrician) on front pastedown and some notes in the text probably in his hand; bookplate of Charing Cross Hospital with their stamp on the title and several other pages. £350 FIRST EDITION. “The principles are drawn up in a concise and aphoristical form for the use of students attending Pearson’s lectures on surgery” (ODNB). The subject matter is principally diseases that require surgical treatment such as gangrene, erysipelas, cancer, etc. Chapter IX is on burns and scalds. Pearson lived for three years in Leeds at the home of William Hey, the eminent surgeon to the Leeds Infirmary, whose biography he later wrote. He travelled to London in 1780 and entered as a student at St George’s Hospital to work under John Hunter.
93.
PERCIVAL, Thomas. Observations and Experiments on the Poison of Lead. London: Printed for J. Johnson... 1774. 12mo, pp. vii, (i), 127, (1); + 4 pages of Johnson’s adverts inserted at the end. Half-title. Paper very slightly browned. Later brown cloth. £180 FIRST EDITION. The use of lead was commonplace in the eighteenth century, and it had only recently been shown by Sir George Baker (to whom this book is dedicated) that it was the cause of the “Devonshire colic”. This work is in three parts; the first is on the common use of lead and its frequently seen effects on humans and animals; the second is on the problems of lead miners and smelters, especially in Derbyshire, and the third is on the chemistry of lead, describing nine experiments, including one conducted by Joseph Priestley. The appendix comprises letters on the subject from John Haygarth, Dr. Rotheram and Dr. Carte. Rosen, The History of Miners’ Diseases, p. 192.
94.
[PERRY, Sampson.] A Disquisition of the Stone and Gravel, and other diseases of the bladder, kidneys, &c... By Wm. Adams, Surgeon, London. London: Printed for P. Shatwell...J. Southern...and the Author... [1772]. 8vo, 64 pages. Signature of Jonathan Hogg at top of title. Modern marbled boards. £250 FIRST EDITION, and very rare: ESTC records one copy only, in the Royal College of Surgeons, but Wellcome also has a copy. The Kiefer catalogue lists the sixth and tenth editions, by which time the work had grown into a substantial book. On pages 40–48 Perry considers the treatment and regimen of children suffering from the stone, and at the end he gives a list of suppliers of his books and solvent, known as Adams’ solvent (Perry used the pseudonym William Adams for the first four editions).
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95.
PETIT, Jean Louis. Traité des Maladies Chirurgicales, et des opérations qui leur conviennent. Ouvrage posthume... Mis au jour par M. Lesne. Paris: Chez P. Fr. Didot le jeune,... 1774. 3 volumes, 8vo, 1 leaf, pp. (viii), civ, 407; 1 leaf, pp. viii, 560; 1 leaf, pp. viii, 343, 142, (2)blank, engraved frontispiece portrait and 90 folding engraved plates. Half-title in each volume. Ink blot on p. 89 of vol. 2, paper flaw in A3 of the supplement affecting the woodcut headpiece but without loss. Contemporary mottled sheep, spines gilt (but a little rubbed, and two spines worn at head), red morocco labels, tips of lower corners worn, but a very good set. £2200 FIRST EDITION, with the rare supplement. G&M 3357 (mastoiditis) and 3577 (“Petit’s hernia” and “triangle”, named after him). Petit was the greatest French surgeon after Paré, and this book, published posthumously, is one of the major works of surgery of the eighteenth century. It summarised the whole of French surgical practice. Petit invented the screw tourniquet and devised numerous successful surgical procedures, including herniotomy without opening the sac, and improved the circular method of amputation. Volume 2 includes a long chapter on hernia. He also recorded, in volume 1, the first successful operation for mastoiditis, and demonstrated the mechanism of the occlusion of arteries in wounds. The supplement, which comprises material found too late to be incorporated in the main text, is principally on head wounds. The plates comprise a veritable atlas of instruments of the period.
First Book on Toxicology
96.
PIETRO D’ABANO. Tractatus de Venenis. [Colophon:] Rome: [no printer,] 1490. 4to, 18 unnumbered leaves. Gothic letter, 33 lines. Modern dark unlettered sheep, a fine copy. £7500 Eighth printing, but the fifth separate edition. The first printed book on toxicology, treating of poisons and their antidotes. “The topics considered in its six main chapters are: the classification of poisons, how they act upon the body, how to guard against them, the effects and cures of a long list of particular poisons, and finally the problem of a panacea or bezoar against all poisons” (Thorndike). The poisons considered are wide ranging, and include arsenic and hemlock, narcotics, and animal poisons. The author makes reference to the loadstone as a poison if taken internally, and to two kinds of magnet (see Mottelay, p. 501, referring to this edition). Pietro d’Abano was born near Padua in 1250, and wrote De venenis in about 1316. First printed with his Conciliator at Mantua in 1472, the same year as Bagellardo’s book on paediatrics, it was one of the first books on a specific medical speciality to be printed. Klebs 774.8. BMC IV, 91. For a full account of this book, and of Pietro d’Abano’s life and other works, see Thorndike, II, pp. 874–947, and for the more bizarre aspects of his life (and death), see the Biographie Générale.
97.
PLAZZONI, Francesco. De Partibus Generationi Inservientibus libri duo... Item ARANTII De Humano Foetu Libellus. Item Gregorii NYMANNI De Vita Foetus in Utero. Dissertatio. Lugduni Batavorum [Leiden]: Ex Officinâ Felicis Lopez de Haro, 1664. 12mo, 3 parts in 1 volume, 4 leaves (including the engraved title), pp. 184; 50 [i.e. 52]; (viii), 84. Separate title-pages to the second and third parts. Contemporary mottled calf, spine gilt in compartments, one corner and head of spine worn, otherwise a nice copy. £600 Third edition of Plazzoni’s work, published here together with Gregor Nymann’s work on the foetus, and the only seventeenth century edition of Aranzi’s important book on the foetus (see G&M 464, the first edition of 1564). Aranzi believed the maternal and foetal circulations (or blood supplies, since he lived before Harvey) to be separate. He described the ductus arteriosus and ductus venosus of the foetus, and the corpora Arantii in the heart valves. He was the first to delineate the uterus, the foetus, and the placenta in the various stages of development, and was the first to record a continued... 46
pelvic deformity. He also made the first valid pronouncement on pelvic contraction in the history of obstetrics, a clear description of its effect on labour. Plazzoni, who was a contemporary of Spigelius at Padua, is not mentioned by either Cole or Needham. His book, which is quite rare in all its editions, was first published in 1621. Nymann’s work on the foetus is described by Needham (p. 136) as not without interest, and written in a beautiful Latin style. He proposed that the foetus has a life of its own, and that the lungs and heart are not inactive, having their own pulse. Appended to Nymann’s work in this edition is Spigelius’s Epistola de incerto tempore partus, pp. 61–84.
In Contemporary Morocco
98.
PLOT, Robert. The Natural History of Oxford-shire, being an essay toward the natural history of England. Oxford: Printed in the [Sheldonian] Theater... 1677. Small folio, 6 leaves, pp. 358, (1) errata, (1) blank, (10) index, (2) blank, 1 folding engraved map and 16 engraved plates each with a dedication within an ornate cartouche to the owner of the land where the object illustrated was found. Imprimatur leaf before the title, large engraved vignette on the title, engraved headpiece and initial in the dedication. Paper slightly browned in the margins, short tear in the map. Contemporary dark purple morocco, sides panelled in gilt, spine richly gilt in compartments, red morocco label, gilt edges, marbled endpapers. Signature of J. Sotheby 1689 in upper corner of title, armorial bookplate of C.W.H. Sotheby. £4750 FIRST EDITION, and a copy in an exceptional binding, of Plot’s extensive survey of the natural history of Oxfordshire in the true Baconian tradition, treating of its flora, fauna, geology, palaeontology and curiosities in general, with the stress on the unusual and anomalous. In this work Plot investigates the geology at length, including erosion and in particular an extensive study of the fossils, but without appreciating that they could be used to identify strata, although he did have some notion of stratigraphy. “Some seventy species of fossils are described and figured by Robert Plot in his work on Oxfordshire, 1677. Here we have excellent descriptions and beautifully engraved drawings of these objects from the Jurassic and Cretaceous. Among them are many well-known forms (given proper names by later authorities), such as the echinoid Clypeus plotii. He recognised the essential differences between those unrelated groups of bivalved shells, the braciopods and the lamellibranchs” (Challinor). On the strength of this book Plot was elected fellow of the Royal Society; a few years later he was appointed its secretary, then he was made the first keeper of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, and at the same time professor of chemistry. Loosely inserted in this copy are four pages of notes on the book, probably in the hand of James Sotheby, whose signature is on the title-page. This copy was among the heirlooms of the Sotheby family removed from Ecton Hall, Northants, and sold at Sotheby’s on 21/22 November 1955, lot 371. Tipped in is a manuscript note on the binding by Graham Pollard. Wing P2586. Adams, The Birth...of the Geological Sciences, pp. 258–259. Challinor, The History of British Geology, 10 (the sixth earliest book listed by Challinor) and p. 62. Edwards, The Early History of Palaeontology, pp. 5–6. Wing, A Bibliography of Dr. Thomas Willis, 92 (Willis’s work and books are discussed on pp. 301–305).
99.
POTT, Percivall. [1] A Treatise on Ruptures. London: C. Hitch and L. Hawes, 1756. [Bound with:] [2] An Account of a Particular Kind of Rupture, frequently attendant upon New-Born Children; and sometimes met with in adults; viz. that in which the intestine, or omentum, is found in the same cavity, and in contact with the testicle. London: C. Hitch and L. Hawes. 1757. [Bound with:] [3] Observations on that disorder of the corners of the eye, commonly called fistula lachrymalis. London: C. Hitch and L. Hawes, 1758. continued... 47
3 works in 1 volume, 8vo, pp. xxx, 232, (4); vi [i.e. iv], 41; vii, 84. A little foxing on the first title, otherwise very good copies. Contemporary calf, rebacked, spine gilt, sides rubbed. Contemporary engraved bookplate of E. Pacifico; also of H.F. Norman, M.D. £2500 [1] FIRST EDITION. G&M 3576. Pott’s first book: a classic study of hernia, and the most important book on the subject since the sixteenth century. Through a fall from his horse, Pott was confined to bed for many days, during which he wrote this, the first of a considerable number of important monographs. In it he refuted many of the old theories of hernia and its treatment, and gave the first description of congenital hernia. See Zimmerman & Veith pp. 324–327, emphasising Pott’s literary qualities, his enormous clinical experience, and the wealth of case reports, which “provide vivid insight into the customs, occupations, and pleasures of his day.” Lilly, Notable Medical Books, 121. [2] FIRST EDITION. “Description of cases of hernia where the intestine occupies the same cavity as the testicle” (Norman). [3] FIRST EDITION. “He gives a good description of the anatomy of the parts, and with regard to the treatment of lachrymal obstruction lays down three varieties of the disease...” (James, History of Ophthalmology in England). Not in the Becker catalogue. Norman catalogue 1729, 1730, and 1731 (these copies).
100. POTT, Percivall. [1] A Treatise on the Hydrocele, or, Watry Rupture, and other diseases of the testicle, it’s coats and vessels; (illustrated with cases.) The third edition. Improved with very considerable additions. London: Printed for L. Hawes, W. Clarke, and R. Collins,... 1773. [Bound with:] [2] An Account of the Method of Obtaining a Perfect or Radical Cure of the Hydrocele, or Watry Rupture, by means of a Seton. The second edition. London: Printed for L. Hawes, W. Clarke, and R. Collins,... 1772. 2 works in 1 volume, 8vo, pp. vii, 2 leaves, pp. 327, 2 engraved plates; 2 leaves, 43 pages, 1 plate. Contemporary calf, nicely rebacked and corners repaired. £650 [1] Exceptionally rare third edition of Pott’s “classic description of hydrocele”. See G&M 4164 (the first edition, with the title Practical remarks on the hydrocele). This edition collates as for the second edition of 1767. It is not in the ESTC or NUC, although Wellcome has a copy (but with one plate only). [2] Second edition of Pott’s supplement to his Treatise on the hydrocele, which expands his account of his use of the seton by which he “considerably and materially improved the operation” (p.4). He also clarifies several points in the former treatise which were the subject of “troublesome correspondence on the subject” (ibi d). This work is also very scarce. This edition not in NUC; ESTC gives one location; also Wellcome.
101. POTT, Percivall. [1] Observations on the Nature and Consequences of those Injuries to which the Head is liable from External Violence. London: Printed for L. Hawes, W. Clarke, and R. Collins,... 1768. [Bound with, as issued:] [2] Some Few General Remarks on Fractures and Dislocations. London: Printed for L. Hawes, W. Clarke, and R. Collins, 1768. 2 works in 1 volume, 8vo, 3 leaves, pp. 276, 3 engraved plates; 2 leaves, pp. 126, 2 engraved plates. Some mild browning. Good modern panelled calf antique, red and green morocco labels. Signature of Benjamin Colles, 1768, on front free endpaper, later signature of Charles C. Smith on pastedown; bookplates of George Parker M.D., James Mackenzie Davidson, and H.F. Norman M.D. £1950 [1] FIRST EDITION. “This is one of the classical writings of English surgery. It abounds in interesting cases well recorded, and some of the conclusions are still regarded as axioms in practice” (D’Arcy Power in DNB). This work is an altered and greatly expanded version of Pott’s ...Wounds and Contusions of the Head, 1760 (G&M 4850.5), in which he first described “Pott’s puffy tumour”.
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In the second edition of his Treatise on hydrocele, 1767, is an advertisement for “a new edition with large additions” of the 1760 book, but when it finally appeared in 1768, the title had been changed. [2] FIRST EDITION. G&M 4408 (incorrectly citing a date of 1767): “The methods outlined by Pott in his classical work on fractures and dislocations were eventually adopted all over the world. He described (pp. 57–64) ‘Pott’s fracture’ in this book, and he stressed the necessity for the immediate setting of fractures and the need for relaxation of the muscles in order that the setting should be carried out successfully” (see Zimmerman and Veith, pp. 330–331, illustrating both plates). “This, on the whole, is the most important contribution by Pott to the surgical practice of the last [i.e. 18th] century...” (DNB). Bick, Classics of Orthopaedics, 6. Not all copies of these two works appear together, but they were evidently issued together as the additional half-title (present here but not in all copies) before the first title testifies. Norman catalogue 1736 and 1734 (these copies).
102. POTT, Percivall. [1] Remarks on that kind of palsy of the lower limbs, which is frequently found to accompany a curvature of the spine, and is supposed to be caused by it. Together with its meth od of cure. To which are added, observations on the necessity and propriety of amputation, in certain cases, and under certain circumstances. London: Printed for J. Johnson..., 1779. [Bound with:] [2] Farther remarks on the useless state of the lower limbs, in consequence of a curvature of the spine: being a supplement to a former treatise on that subject. London: Printed for J. Johnson... 1782. 2 works in 1 volume, 8vo, 2 leaves, pp. (5)–84; 2 leaves, 64 pages, and 5 fine mezzotint plates of vertebrae by R. Laurie. Lacking the half-title to [1]. Some spotting on the first two leaves, foxing on the plates. Contemporary marbled boards, rebacked and recornered in sheep, sides rubbed. Contemporary signature “T. Baker M.D.” on front pastedown, with copious notes in the same hand on the verso of the half-title of [2] (dated 1815), on seven blank leaves bound at the end, and on the rear pastedown. Bookplate of the Society of Apothecaries and H.F. Norman, M.D. £1500 FIRST EDITIONS. G&M 4304 (the first work), Pott’s description of the condition later known as “Pott’s disease”. “Surgeon to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital for more than 40 years, Pott left a classic description of spinal curvature due to tuberculous caries and causing paralysis of the lower limbs. He did not, however, recognise its tuberculous nature. Pott published a further book on the subject in 1782” (G&M). It is unusual for both works to be found together. Norman Catalogue 1738 and 1738A (these copies). Valentin, Geschichte der Orthopädie, 65 (“...klassiche Werk...mit schönen Kupfern”). Bick 79. Garrison, p. 344: “...epoch-making.”
103. POTT, Percivall. An Account of the Method of Obtaining a Perfect or Radical Cure of the Hydrocele, or Watry Rupture, by means of a Seton. London: Printed for L. Hawes, W. Clarke, and R. Collins,... 1771. 1 leaf, 42 pages, 2 engraved plates. Modern half calf. £450 FIRST EDITION of Pott’s supplement to his Treatise on the hydrocele, which expands his account of his use of the seton by which he “considerably and materially improved the operation” (p.4). He also clarifies several points in the former treatise which were the subject of “troublesome correspondence on the subject” ibid). ( This work is also very scarce. The first plate is the same as that in Pott’s A treatise on the hydrocele, and may not belong here. On the other hand, it is bound opposite the anatomical description to which it refers, and may be required in copies not issued with the Treatise on the hydrocele. Wellcome, for example, has 1 plate, but the copy is bound with the Treatise on the hydrocele.
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Best Collected Edition
104. POTT, Percivall. The Chirurgical Works. and R. Collins, 1775.
London: Printed for Hawes, W. Clarke,
Large 4to, 5 leaves, pp. (5)–802, and 12 engraved plates. Good modern half calf antique. Very small library stamp on the half-title, a nice copy. £1800 Collected edition of this great surgeon’s works, and the only one in quarto. It includes his works on wounds of the head, ruptures, fractures and dislocations, chimney sweeps’ cancer, etc., etc. Pott was surgeon to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, and the principal English surgeon of his time.
With Woodcuts from Gersdorff’s Feldtbuch
105. [PRISCIANUS, Theodorus “Octavius Horatianus” (pseudonym). Rerum Medicarum Lib. Quatuor. I. Logicus, De curationibus omnium ferme morborum... II. De acutis & chronicis passionibus... III. Gynecia... IIII. De physica scientia... Per Heremanum Comitem a Neüenar, integro candori nuper restitutus autor. ALBUCASIS Chirurgicorum omnium primarii, Lib. tres. I. De cautero cum igne... II. De sectione & perforatione... III. De restauratione & curatione dislocationis... Argent. [Strasbourg]: apud Joannem Schottum, 1532. Folio, pp. (viii), 319. Title within woodcut border, with 8 full-page woodcuts and numerous smaller woodcuts of instruments in the text. Two small wormholes in fore-edge margin of 70 leaves, small dampstain in lower outer corner of a few leaves, paper slightly browned. Nineteenth century quarter calf and marbled boards, rebacked preserving the original gilt backstrip. Early ownership inscriptions in upper and lower margins of title, also an old stamp; bookplate on front pastedown of Juan Carlos Ahumada and his stamp on last (blank) page. This book is often found on badly discoloured paper, but this copy is only slightly browned, and is otherwise very clean. £10,500 This fine book incorporates the works of Theodorus Priscianus (fl. 4th century), and the surgical work of Albucasis (936–1013), which was the first rational, complete and illustrated treatise on surgery and surgical instruments (G&M 5550). To this edition are added 8 full-page woodcuts from the Feldtbuch der Wundtartzney of Gersdorff (1517). These woodcuts, which are of exceptional quality, are by Hans Wächtlin of Basle, and are “some of the most instructive pictures of early surgical procedure in existence; in particular, the first picture ever made of an amputation...” (see Garrison p. 202). They achieved a high point in medical illustration by their vividness, and were the source for many later illustrators. They include the much repeated “wound man”, the chest operation on the battlefield, and a viscera-manikin. The illustrations of the use of the trepan are particularly impressive, “an example of the finest woodcut graphic art of the early sixteenth century” (Herrlinger, p. 142). Included with these woodcuts is the skeleton that appeared in Gersdorff as a folding plate (see Choulant pp. 162–165). As the successive editions of Gersdorff ’s Feldtbuch, at least to 1540, were in quarto, this folio sheet is found only in the first edition and in the present book. The other blocks are also found here in their full size, but were cut down for the quarto editions of Gersdorff. Priscianus was physician to the emperor Gratian. Of his writings five books have come down to us, of which the first four are included here edited by Hermann, Count of Neuenaar. The surgical work of Albucasis, the sole surgical work left us by the Arab world, appears here in the version of Gerard of Cremona (Venice, 1497), and for the fifth time in print. Wightman, Science and the Renaissance, 538.
50
Item 105, Priscianus
51
106. PUSEY, William Allen, and Eugene Wilson CALDWELL. The Practical Application of the Röntgen Ray in Therapeutics and Diagnosis. Philadelphia [etc.]: W.B. Saunders & Company, 1903. 8vo, pp. 591, 16(adverts), 176 illustrations. Original blue cloth, a few library stamps but a nice, bright copy. £180 FIRST EDITION of one of “the three most valuable books by American authors published during the first decade of roentgenology” (Glasser, Science radiology, 380–381). See also Grigg, Trail of invisible light, 839.
107. RAMAZZINI, Bernardino. A Treatise of the Diseases of Tradesmen, shewing the various influence of particular trades upon the state of health; with the best methods to avoid or correct it, and useful hints proper to be minded in regulating the cure of all diseases incident to tradesmen. London: Printed for Andrew Bell...and Jeff. Wale, 1705. 8vo, pp. (xii), 274 [i.e. 264, page nos. 145–154 omitted]. Title within double ruled border. Paper rather browned and foxed (as in the only other two copies that I have had). Contemporary panelled calf, rebacked and tips of corners repaired, endpapers replaced. Early signature of Edward Hendrick on title and of Gaspar Delahoyde, surgeon, 1746, on front pastedown. £3500 FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH of the first book on industrial medicine. See G&M 2121: “Ramazzini wrote the first comprehensive and systematic treatise on occupational diseases. It deals with pneumoconiosis and other diseases of miners, with lead poisoning in potters, with silicosis in stonemasons, diseases among metal workers, and even a chapter devoted to the ‘diseases of learned men’.” See also Printing and the Mind of Man 170: the book earned Ramazzini the title of “the father of industrial hygiene.” This first English edition is very rare.
108. RAMSAY, A. Maitland. Atlas of External Diseases of the Eye. MacLehose and Sons, 1898.
Glasgow: James
4to, pp. xvi, 195, (1), and 48 chromolithographed and photogravure plates. Library stamp on verso of title, and acquisition numbers on dedication, last page slightly dust-soiled. Modern half morocco, t.e.g., other edges uncut. £280 FIRST EDITION. “A prominent Glasgow ophthalmic surgeon of the first quarter of this century, Ramsay’s fame justly rests on this atlas, one of the finest productions of its kind. Illustrated with thirty chromolithographs and eighteen photogravures, the plates illustrate cases Ramsay met with at the Glasgow Eye Infirmary. The chromolithographs were produced by Maclagan & Cumming after photographs taken and colored by A.H. Geyer. The eighteen photogravures were prepared by the well-known Glasgow firm of T. & R. Annan” (Becker). Becker Catalogue 310. Albert, Norton & Hurtes 1884.
109. RAMSDEN, [Jesse]. Description of a new Universal Equatoreal, made by Ramsden, with the method of adjusting it for observation. [No place or printer; London(?)]: May 1774. 4to, 8 pages, 1 folding engraved plate, printed slip with instructions for putting the instrument into its case tipped in. Caption title. Modern marbled boards. £2750 The extremely rare printed instructions of how to set up and operate one of Jesse Ramsden’s finest telescopes, fitted with his innovative eyepiece, which is still in use today. “The instrument, often referred to as the portable observatory in recognition of its multiple uses, comprised an azimuth, or horizontal circle, representing the equator, placed at right angles, and moving on a polar axis which represents the axis of the earth. Thus the telescope is parallel to the
continued... 52
earth’s polar axis, and once the star is brought in line with the telescope objective, it can be kept in view over a long period of time by means of a single motion. The instrument could also be used to measure zenith and altitude” (McConnell, Jesse Ramsden (1735–1800), London’s leading scientific instrument maker, p. 27). “The foundation of Ramsden's reputation lay in the advances that he made in the design of astronomical instruments used for measuring exact angles in the heavens. By 1760 such instruments stood at the forefront of research in the physical sciences as astronomers across Europe, and especially in England, sought to obtain data that would enable them to refine their understanding of the moon’s orbit, the solar, and (they hoped) the stellar, parallaxes, and to map the stars to an error of less than a single arc second. The application of astronomical research to navigation was of pressing importance to Britain as a maritime power. “Ramsden was the first instrument maker seriously to tackle the structural problems inherent in the design of equatorially mounted telescopes. In 1774 he published an account of his New Universal Equatorial and instruments of his design were constructed for George III and other prominent persons... Transforming the unsuccessful equatorial sectors with which Bird and Sisson had experimented in the early 1770s, Ramsden produced a far more stable design. Using conical load bearing supports and compensating for the changing weight distribution inherent in a large ‘English’ equatorial mounting, he brought engineering skills to the resolution of problems of building large instruments with ponderous moving parts” (ODNB). Taylor (Hanoverian), 526. ESTC calls for 2 plates (but only one plate is called for in the text), and records a single copy, in the BL; in fact the BL has two copies, neither of which has any plates. This may therefore be the only known complete copy. A similar pamphlet, but without the engraved plate, had appeared in January 1773.
Item 109, Jesse Ramsden’s universal equatoreal. (greatly reduced)
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Pioneering Botany
110. [RAY, John.] Catalogus Plantarum circa Cantabrigiam nascentium: in quo exhibentur quotquot hactenus inventæ sunt, quæ vel sponte proveniunt, vel in agris feruntur... Adjiciuntur in gratiam tyronum, index Anglico-latinus... Cantabrigiæ [Cambridge]: Excudebat Joann. Field,... impensis Gulielmi Nealand, bibliopolæ, 1660. Small 8vo, 15 leaves, 182 pages, 1 leaf (sub-title), 103 pages. Title printed in red and black. Contemporary calf, covers and spine bordered with narrow double gilt fillet, gilt ornaments in the corners, the same ornament appearing twice at the head and foot of spine (extremities rubbed, ends of joints a little worn, contents fine). A delightful copy. £2250 FIRST EDITION of Ray’s first book. This work was the first book on the wild plants of an English county, but it was a true pioneering work in a wider sense. It aroused a new interest in botany, as Ray had hoped, but it set Ray himself on course to publish the system of plant classification that would be ultimately adopted. Ray “influenced both the theory and the practice of botany more decisively than any other single person in the latter half of the seventeenth century” (Morton). Published in the year in which the Royal Society was formed, this book marks the point in the scientific revolution when botany became part of the new science. “His Catalogus plantarum circa Cantabrigiam nascentium (1660) described 558 species of native plant which he had recognized, as well as the crops growing in Cambridgeshire... The catalogue was arranged alphabetically, with the titles used by Gerard, Parkinson, and Jean and Gaspard Bauhin also included. The circumstances and uses of the plants were described and the English names of their locations given. Wray added natural philosophical observations, for example concerning the behaviour of caterpillars, at appropriate points, and an index allowed the English reader to identify plants by their common names. The Catalogus demonstrated the meticulous nature of his approach to botany. It identified several new plants but reconciled many descriptions to avoid the unnecessary multiplication of species...” ( ). Wing R383. Keynes 1, issue with Keynes’s corrected title A; Keynes located copies with title A, title B, and with both. A further issue exists with a cancel title-page bearing a London imprint (Keynes 2). Morton, History of Botanical Science, p. 195 et seq.
111. REGNAULT, [Noel]. Philosophical Conversations: or, a new system of Physics, by way of dialogue... Translated into English and illustrated with notes by Thomas Dale, M.D. London: Printed for W. Innys...C. Davis...and N. Prevost... 1731. 3 volumes, 8vo, pp. (xiv), 402, 34 plates; (iv), 224, *217–*224, 225–414, 29 plates (on 28 sheets, the 2 folding plates at pp. 152 and 153 being on the same sheet); (iv), 342, 26 plates. Plate for vol. 3, p. 225, misbound in vol. 2, some plates in vol. 3 misbound. Titles printed in red and black. Contemporary speckled calf, spines ruled in gilt with paper labels (chipped), extremities rubbed, head of spine of vol. 1 and tail of vol. 3 worn, three joints just beginning to crack, internally a fine and clean copy. £950 FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH of one of the most successful popularisations of science. The original edition, Entretiens physiques, appeared in 1729, running to an eighth edition in 1755 with many reissues in between. Curiously this was the only English edition and the only translation. It is profusely illustrated with 89 plates showing physical and astronomical principles and experiments. Regnault, a Jesuit, was a follower of Descartes, but although “not wholly unacquainted” with the writings of Newton, he excluded all conviction of him. Thomas Dale, the translator of this English edition, “subjoined the Principles of the Newtonian Philosophy by way of Notes...by which Means the Reader will have the Pleasure of comparing the Old Philosophy with the New, and of perceiving the Advantage of the latter” (the preface).
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Early Caesarean Section in Argentina
112. [RIBES, José, and Manuel BONAFOS.] Modo de Hacer la Operacion Cesarea despues de muerta la madre. Buenos Ayres: [no printer], 30th January 1805. Folio, 7 unnumbered pages. Caption title. Crease across the centre, first page a bit soiled, three small holes in the crease in the first leaf carefully repaired, but in very good condition. Unbound. £800 FIRST EDITION. The twelfth medical work printed in Argentina, an official pamphlet issued by order of the Viceroy containing instructions on how to perform Cæsarean section on recently deceased pregnant women in the hope of saving the foetus (whose spiritual and temporal welfare, according to the authors, was “an object of the greatest importance”). The pamphlet contains four paragraphs of preliminary instructions — including how to ascertain whether the woman was truly dead — and a two-page description of the operation itself. The remaining pages contain official language relating to the document’s creation, sanction by the government, printing and distribution. The authors’ names appear on the fourth page. Ribes is mentioned in Lai Entralgo’s Historia Universal de la Medicina (1973, vol. 5, p. 129) as a noted surgeon in the faculty of the Real Colegio de San Carlos de Madrid. Ribes and Bonafos intended their instructions to be intelligible to laymen as well as to physicians, because “skilled surgeons cannot be found in all the places where they are needed.” Medical instruction in Argentina was at that time in its infancy, and obstetrical instruction practically non-existent. Buenos Aires had established its first chair of anatomy only four years before the publication of this pamphlet, and although Cæsarean section was performed in Argentina as early as 1794, a chair of obstetrics was not established there until 1827. The printed instructions at the end of the pamphlet call for its distribution to government officials and church prelates. (With acknowledgement to Jeremy Norman’s Catalogue 28, item 270.) Of exceptional rarity. Not noticed in the histories of Cæsarean section by Young (1944), Pundel (1969) or Trolle (1982). Wellcome, Medical Americana, A9.
113. RICHARDSON, William. The Chemical Principles of the Metallic Arts; with an account of the principal diseases incident to the different artificers; the means of prevention and cure; and a concise introduction to the study of chemistry. Birmingham: printed by Thomas Pearson; and sold by R. Baldwin, London, 1790. 8vo, pp. vi, (v), xx–cii, 1 leaf (sub-title), pp. 201, (1) blank, (4) index, 3 folding letterpress tables. Faint library stamp on title and a few other unobtrusive stamps elsewhere. Good modern half calf antique, an excellent copy. £1500 FIRST EDITION. At the top of the title are the words “Designed chiefly for the use of manufacturers.” The first third of the book presents a short course in chemistry to give manufacturers a review of the subject. Much of the remainder is devoted to descriptions of different ores with their properties, methods of assaying, metals and metal alloys, and so on. The last 16 pages are occupied by a study of the diseases to which workers in metal manufactories are exposed, whether by swallowing, inhalation, or absorption through the skin, and as such it is one of the earliest books in English on occupational or industrial medicine. Birmingham was, of course, an important centre for the manufacture of metal goods, and in particular the production of cheap goods in large quantities, and it is appropriate that Richardson, as a Birmingham surgeon, should address what was then a significant problem, but one which was largely ignored by factory owners. Cole 1114. Ferguson II, pp. 269–270. Neville II, p. 376. Wellcome IV, p. 521. This was the only edition of the author’s only book, and is very uncommon.
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Translated at Sea during Cook’s Second Voyage
114. ROSEN VON ROSENSTEIN, Nils. The Diseases of Children, and their Remedies. Translated into English by Andrew Sparrman, M.D. London: Printed for T. Cadell,... 1776. 8vo, pp. vi, (i) contents, 364, (15) index. Good modern half calf antique. Spotting on the first and last leaves, otherwise a very good copy. £1800 FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH. See G&M 6323: “Sir Frederick Still considered this work ‘the most progressive which had yet been written’; it gave an impetus to research which influenced the future course of paediatrics. Rosén was the founder of modern paediatrics and was particularly interested in infant feeding.” See Still’s History of Paediatrics, pp. 434–438: “In 1764 a very important work on the diseases of children and their treatment was published in Stockholm by a physician who had already become famous... His description of scarlet fever is based on his own notes... How near Rosén came to the conception of bacterial infection is seen in his remarks on whooping-cough...” The translator of this edition was the great Swedish botanist and traveller Anders Sparrman. He carried a copy of the recently published third edition of Rosen’s book with him when he travelled to South Africa in 1772, and he had it with him when he joined Cook’s second voyage at the Cape. Although conscious of his lack of English, he was encouraged to translate the book by Georg and Johann Forster, who were with him on the voyage. He explains in his account of the voyage that the work was “finished in our last year of cruising in the South Sea, mostly in the rougher climates, as I at that time was the least taken up with business of any other kind, except that of writing; though even in this case I was not unfrequently obliged, on account of the stormy weather, to cling with my leg round the foot of the table, and hold myself fast with one hand, in order to be able to write with the other...” See Vahlquist & Wallgren, Nils Rosen von Rosenstein and his textbook on paediatrics, 1964, and Acta Paed. Scand., 66, 269–272 (1977) about this translation.
115. [1] SAGE, [Balthasar Georges]. Expériences propres a faire connoitre que l’Alkali Volatil Fluor est le remede le plus efficace dans les Asphyxies;... Troisième édition, augmentée. Paris: L’Imprimerie de Monsieur, 1778. [Bound with:] [2] MARTINET, – . Observations médico-chimiques sur le Cancer. Paris: L’Imprimerie de Monsieur, 1781. [Bound with:] [3] GARDANNE, [Joseph Jacques] de. Catechisme sur les morts apparantes, dites Asphyxies... Paris: L’Imprimerie de Valade, 1781. [Bound with:] [4] REVILLON, Claude. Recherches sur la cause des Affections Hypochondriaques, apelées communément vapeurs... Paris: la veuve Hérissant, 1779. [Bound with:] [5] PARIS, [Jean François]. Mémoire sur la Peste. Avignon: Jean Mossy, 1778. 5 works in 1 volume, 8vo, 2 leaves, pp. xvi, 76; 2 leaves, pp. 39; 3 leaves, pp. (3)–160; xii, 121, (3); (iv), xxxvi, 86. Contemporary French mottled calf, spine richly gilt, red morocco label, bookplate. Head of spine slightly chipped, otherwise fine. £340 [1] Third(?), final and enlarged edition. A monograph on the chemical properties of sal volatile, prepared from sal ammoniac and slaked lime, and its uses in cases of asphyxiation and other accidents. It begins with the description of the experiment performed by Lavoisier at the Académie des Sciences, in which he demonstrated the asphyxiating power of carbon dioxide on a bird, which was then revived by Sage using volatile alkali fluid (ammonium carbonate), a preparation later known as “smelling salts”. The Lieutenant-General of Police ordered a large number of copies to be printed for the welfare of the public. Duveen p. 523 (third edition). Neville II, p. 414. Wellcome V, p. 5. See Cole 1145. Not in Huston, Resuscitation. [2] Probably the first edition; a new edition appeared in 1783. [3] FIRST EDITION (?). Ten editions had appeared by 1782; this edition is “signed” by Valade to prevent counterfeits. Huston, Resuscitation, 18. [4] FIRST EDITION. [5] FIRST EDITION. Includes a bibliography.
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Item 116 Salvi, showing points for phlebotomy
57
116. SALVI, Tarduccio. Il Chirurgo... Con il ministro del medico, opera dell’ istesso autore. Di nuovo ristampato con le figure di rame. Aggiontoui un breve, & utile discorso di chirurgia di Pietro di Piazza. In Roma: A spese di Gregorio, e Giovanni Andreoli, 1669. 3 parts in 1 volume, 4to (in 8s), pp. (viii), 168; (iv), 59; 80. With 5 full-page and 6 half-page engravings in part 2. Separate title-page to each part. Small repair to wormhole in lower blank corner of title, small holes in following 3 leaves, small (1 cm.) hole in d8 affecting a woodcut tailpiece, paper a little browned (as in other copies) except for a few gatherings, but otherwise in very good condition. Contemporary mottled sheep, spine gilt, very neat repair to foot of spine and corners, later bookplate. £1100 Fourth edition of a rare Italian surgical work, first published in 1613. The first chapter is entitled “Rules pertaining to a good surgeon”, and succeeding chapters are on anatomy, tumours, wounds, ulcers, fractures, and dislocations. The last chapter is a herbal. The second part is on phlebotomy, and is illustrated with striking engravings showing the position to be adopted when bleeding from a particular part, and the instruments to be used. The first illustration shows a hippopotamus. The third part is the short treatise on surgery by Pietro di Piazza, which was first added to the edition of 1650, and which does not appear to have been published separately. Metabolism
117. SANTORIO, Santorio (Sanctorius). Medicina Statica: or, Rules of health, in eight sections of aphorisms... Englished by J[ohn] D[avies]. London: Printed for John Starkey,... 1676. 12mo, pp. (xii), 180, engraved frontispiece of Santorio in his weighing chair. Modern mottled calf antique. Small restoration to the lower inner corner of the frontispiece, a few insignificant marks or stains, but a very good copy. £1800 Second edition in English (see below). With this book Santorio founded the physiology of metabolism, and introduced quantitative experimentation into biological science. He introduced exact methods of measurement, with himself as the subject. Using the balance as an instrument of weight control, the pulse-clock and the thermometer, he measured pulse-rate, respiration, body temperature and daily variations in weight relative to ingestion and excretion. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Santorio was regarded, with Harvey, as one of the greatest figures in the history of physiology. See G&M 573 (Venice, 1614). Both the first edition and the first edition in English of this book are of the greatest rarity. In fact the present edition has traditionally been regarded as the first in English, Abdiah Cole’s edition of 1663 being unknown until recently (the Norman copy and another at Brown University may be the only known copies; it is still not in Wing). Wing S571. Norman Catalogue 1892. See Foster, Lectures on the history of physiology, 145–147. First Substantial Portuguese Anatomy
118. SANTUCCI, Bernardo. Anatomia do corpo humano, recopilada com doutrinas medicas, chimicas, filosoficas, mathematicas, com indices, e estampas, representantes todas as partes do corpo humano, dividida em tres livros... Lisboa Occidental [Lisbon]: Na Officina de Antonio Pedrozo Galram, 1739. 8vo, 14 leaves, 471 pages, 18 engraved plates by Miguel Le Bouteux with 26 leaves of explanation. Woodcut ornaments. Contemporary sheep, spine gilt ruled with gilt centres, slight wear to lower cover, a very crisp and clean copy. £950 SOLE EDITION of the first substantial illustrated anatomy published in Portuguese. Santucci was an Italian, physician to several royal personages of Europe, and professor of anatomy at Lisbon. See Prof. E. E. Franco, Un anatomico italiano, professore a Lisbona nel secolo xviii, Bernardo Santucci da Cortona (1701–1764). Bio-bibliografia documentata e illustrata da figure (Arezzo, 1925).
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“A Book Worth Having”
119. SAVIARD, [Barthélemy]. Observations in Surgery...wherein not only the method of practice in difficult labours, but other distempers incident to the female sex are copiously enlarged on: among others, that of the descent of the womb...by J[ohn] S[parrow]. London: Printed for J. Hodges,... 1740. 8vo, pp. (xvi), 289, (7). Contemporary calf, spine gilt, red morocco label, the label chipped, spine worn and wormed at the foot, slight damage to the leather on the sides, but a nice, fresh copy. Fine contemporary armorial bookplate on front pastedown. £650 FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH. “This is a valuable collection of cases, containing a description of the tourniquet (using that name) as applied at the Hôtel Dieu in 1688 in a case of successful ligation of the femoral [artery?] for a wound of that vessel. He refers to the pernicious atmosphere of the Hôtel Dieu and its effects on wounds, gives an interesting note on Frère Jacques, describes a case of dermoid cyst of the ovary and one of congenital absence of the penis, and gives details of some remarkable cases of lithotomy. It is a book worth having” (Billings, History and Literature of Surgery, p. 59). This was the only English edition and is scarce.
120. SCHALLING, Jacob. Ophthalmia [in Greek] sive disquisitio hermetico-galenica de natura oculorum eorumque visibilibus characteribus morbis & remediis. Censura gratiosi ordinis D.D. F.F.rm. Rosatae Crucis oblata & representata. Augentrost, darinn von Natur, sichtbaren Bildnissen, Kranckheiten und Artzeneyen der Augen trewlich und fleissig gehandelt wird. Dem hochlöblichen Orden derer H.H. Brüder des Rosen Creutzes zum Urtheil und Censur untergeben und praesentirt. Erffurdt: In Verlegung Johann Bischoffs Buchf. 1615. Small folio, 5 leaves, 169 [i.e. 179] pages. The title-page (slightly shaved, mounted at an early date and folded in, being larger than the rest of the book) is engraved, with letterpress in the central tablet. With 17 woodcuts of the eye in the text, woodcut head- and tailpieces. Eighteenth century German speckled boards, red lettering piece (chipped) on spine. Leaves E3 & I2 cropped at foot with loss of signatures and catchwords, also last line of text on I2 shaved, but a fine copy. Old stamp of Dr. Monoyer on second leaf; engraved bookplate of Thomas Lauth (1758–1826, anatomist in Strassburg). £7500 FIRST EDITION of a very early monograph on ophthalmology and a very rare book, a curious mixture of strictly medical information and mysticism. Written in Latin with the German translation on facing pages, it is divided into three parts: the first deals with the anatomy and physiology of the eye; the second deals with visible images and includes chapters on light and colours; and the third deals with eye diseases and materia medica, therapeutics and dietetics, and ends with a chapter on chemical operations. Schalling, from Winssheim in Franconia, was evidently a Rosicrucian. This exceptionally rare and unusual book is not in the Becker catalogue, and does not appear to be mentioned in the literature of ophthalmology. Gardner, Bibliotheca Rosicruciana, 598.
121. SCHOTT, Gaspar. Technica curiosa, sive mirabilia artis, libri XII. comprehensa; quibus varia experimenta, variaque technasmata pneumatica, hydraulica, hydrotechnica, mechanica, graphica, cyclometrica, chronometrica, automatica, cabalistica, aliaque artis arcana ac miracula, rara, curiosa, ingeniosa, magnamque partem nova & antehac inaudita, eruditi orbis utilitati, delectationi, disceptationique proponuntur... Nürnberg: Sumptibus Johannis Andreæ Endteri, & Wolfgangi Junioris Hæredum, Excudebat Jobus Hertz Typographus Herbipol., 1664. 2 parts in 1 volume, thick 4to, pp. (xl), 579; 1 leaf (sub-title to part 2), pp. 583–1044, (16), engraved title and 60 engraved plates (many folding, including the plate “Ad Iconismus XVI” in part 1, continued... 59
Item 120, The extraordinary title-page by the Rosicrucian Jacob Schalling
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and counting XVII/ XVIII in part 2 as one plate). Half-title, printed title in red and black with the engraved portrait of the dedicatee on the verso, and his engraved arms on p. (x), the last leaf is a list of Schott’s published works. Some foxing (mostly light, but a few gatherings and plates heavily foxed). Contemporary mottled calf (rather rubbed, upper joint split but held by the cords). Bookplate of the Royal Meteorological Society. £4800 FIRST EDITION. This work is a huge compilation of scientific instruments, mechanical technology, and physical curiosities, in fact every aspect of anything technical that Schott could discover. It includes descriptions of Guericke’s experiments with the air pump, a very full survey of the history of diving apparatus, a large section on clocks and clockwork, and much else. It gives a very comprehensive account of the state of technology up to the beginning of the Scientific Revolution. As with most of Schott’s works, it is richly illustrated. Baillie, Clocks and Watches, 1664. Norman catalogue 1911.
122. SCHULTZE, Maximilian [Johann] Sigmund. Untersuchungen über den Bau der Nasenschleimhaut, namentlich die Structur und Endigungsweise der Geruchsnerven bei dem Menschen und den Wirbelthieren. Aus den Abhandlungen der Naturforschungen Gesellschaft zu Halle Bd. VII. besonders abgedruckt. Halle: Druck und Verlag von H.W. Schmidt, 1862. 4to, pp. 99, (1), 5 lithographed plates from drawings by the author. Some foxing (more severe on the last leaf and first plate). Original cloth-backed printed boards, a bit soiled and rubbed, upper inner hinge almost broken. PRESENTATION COPY, inscribed from the author on the front free endpaper to Professor George Humphry, professor of anatomy at Cambridge; also with the Cambridge library label on the front pastedown, presented by Humphry. £950 FIRST SEPARATE EDITION. G&M 936: “Schultze’s classic paper on the nerves to the neuroepithelium in the special sense organs marks an epoch in histology. He describes the cells of the olfactory mucous membrane, ‘Schultze’s cells’.” See also Finger, Origins of neuroscience, p. 180, and Rothschuh, Geschichte der Physiologie: “Schultze belongs to those epoch-making masters of anatomical and microscopical research. He is a co-founder of cytology” (in translation).
123. [SERAPION the Elder.] Iani Damasceni Decapolitani summae inter Arabes autoritatis medici, Therapeutice Methodi, hoc est, curandi artis libri VII. partim Albano Torino Vitodurano paraphraste, partim Gerardo iatro Cremonensi metaphraste... Apud Inclytem Basilaeam [Basle]: per Henrichum Petrum, [1543]. Small folio, pp. (xxiv), 491, (1). Printer’s woodcut device on verso of last leaf. Two early manuscript notes on title concerning its authorship. Title a little soiled, old repair to lower corner of first four leaves, dampstain in upper and lower margins of a few leaves, several wormholes in blank lower corner of first 25 leaves, two very small wormholes diminishing and finally disappearing in first half of book affecting letters of text, generally a fine and clean copy. Modern blind-stamped pigskin. £1500 First edition of Alban Thorer’s paraphrase of Books I–IV of Serapion’s Therapeutica methodi, with Books V–VII in the translation of Gerard of Cremona, and with the Aphorisms published for the first time. The work is on special pathology and therapeutics. “The pathological arrangement is very faulty, chief stress being laid upon formulae. Serapion advised venesection in most inflammatory affections and gave subtle directions upon the choice of veins in its performance” (Neuburger, p. 386). He included descriptions of meningitis and rickets, and of an eruption (Baas). Serapion the Elder was a Christian physician who flourished in Damascus in the second half of the ninth century. Two of his works, originally written in Syriac, survive, but because he drew on Arabic sources he is often included with Arabic authors of the period. The present work, also known as the Breviarium medicinae and the Practica, was several times translated into Arabic, and thence into Latin by Gerard of Cremona in the twelfth century. Never printed in Arabic, it continued... 61
appeared in several incunable and earlier sixteenth century editions. Some confusion reigns over its ascription to Mesuë, Janus Damascensis, and Serapion. Choulant (Handbuch, p. 347) ascribes it to Serapion, and suggests that the confusion arose with this edition, which he considers the best. Durling 4778 (under Yuhanna Ibn Serapion). Parkinson & Lumb 2278. Wellcome 4272 (under Mesuë). See Stillwell, The awakening interest in science, III, 555.
124. SHORT, Thomas. The Natural, Experimental, and Medicinal History of the Mineral Waters of Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, and Yorkshire, particularly those of Scarborough... Together with the natural history of the earths, minerals and fossils through which the chief of them pass... London: Printed for the author, 1734. 4to, 10 leaves, pp. xxii, 359, (3), engraved plate at p. 75 and 4 folding plates at the end. Half-title, extra leaf Uu duplicating pages numbers 315–316, Hh1 is a cancel (the slit cancellandum is also present). Ink stain on pp. 322–323, a little foxing and a few small marks. Later half morocco, uncut. £300 FIRST EDITION. The first of two books by Short on British mineral waters. He includes some extensive notes on works by earlier authors. Waring, Bibliotheca therapeutica, 800.
125. SIMPSON, James Y. Anaesthesia, or the Employment of Chloroform and Ether in Surgery, Midwifery, etc. Philadelphia: Lindsay & Blakiston, 1849. 8vo, pp. (ix)–xv, (i) blank, (17)–248. Original brown cloth (lower joint neatly repaired, small stain in upper corner of first few leaves, stamp on title, library labels on endpapers). £1400 FIRST EDITION. “Simpson’s epoch-making experiments were partially reported in Edinburgh during 1847 and 1848...but the present American volume represents his full-dress exposition of the introduction of anaesthesia for childbirth. It concludes with replies to several of his critics, among whom was Dr. Meigs of Philadelphia” (Lilly, Medicine, and Exhibition of Books, no. 154). “It seems to us that the full importance of this rare book has been underrated, and that, as the first book on chloroform, it should be considered a major classic of medicine” (R.D. Gurney, Catalogue 75, 1978). Simpson introduced inhalation anaesthesia into obstetrics, and popularized the use of chloroform as a replacement for sulphuric ether. The practice of anaesthesia in childbirth was opposed by those who considered labour pains a God-given punishment for Eve’s sins, but Simpson’s cause was vindicated when, in 1853, Queen Victoria took chloroform for the birth of Prince Leopold. Norman 1946 (Simpson’s own copy).
First Regulating Inhaler for an Anaesthetic
126. SNOW, John. On the Inhalation of the Vapour of Ether. From the London Medical Gazette. London: Printed by Wilson and Ogilvy... [1847]. 8vo, pp. 10, (2) blank. Text printed in double columns, 2 illustrations of apparatus in the text. Later green half morocco, unlettered. £2200 FIRST SEPARATE EDITION, containing Snow’s first printed description and illustration of his regulating apparatus, which was the first to control the amount of ether vapour inhaled by the patient. Snow first described his inhaler in this paper published in the London Medical Gazette (1847, n.s. 4, 156), of which the present is an offprint. He modified the inhaler soon after, and published the revisions in his On the Inhalation of the Vapour of Ether in Surgical Operations (G&M 5658), which appeared in October, 1847, a larger book described by G&M as the second treatise on ether anaesthesia, after that of Robinson. Norman catalogue 1965. Not in Fulton & Stanton. See Cole, Milestones in anesthesia, 11. Of exceptional rarity, even more so than Snow’s book later that year. Not in the BL; Wellcome has a copy. RLIN locates two copies, at Yale and Harvard.
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Auction Catalogue of Minerals
127. SOWERBY, George B. Select Minerals. A Catalogue of a most Choice Collection of Minerals, containing some very rare and interesting substances, and many of which have never been offered for public sale. The property of Mr. G.B. Sowerby, which will be sold by auction, by Mr. Thomas, at his (late Mr. King’s) Great Room, 38, King Street, Covent Garden, on Thursday, the 10th of June, 1824, and following day... [No place or printer; London: 1824.] 8vo, 19 pages. Modern boards. Cropped inscription in the upper corner of the title: “R.C. Fergusson E[sq.] 18 Portman Squ[are]”. £800 This auction catalogue would appear to be one of the earliest ventures into the commercial market for minerals of George Sowerby (1788–1854), the son of James Sowerby (1757–1822). The earliest catalogue noted by the ODNB and COPAC is that of the Tankerville collection of 1825. Sowerby seems to have made a bit of a mess of his early efforts, as the introduction to the sale indicates that this sale consisted partly of lots withdrawn from a sale of the previous month, some of which were incorrectly described. “Mr. Sowerby having now separated his own from all other Property which was then offered, and having added to them an equal number of Lots, ventures again to request the attention of Collectors... and also to express his determination...to pledge himself for the correctness of all the descriptions, as he does for those in the Catalogue at present submitted.” Rare: no copy is recorded by OCLC or COPAC.
Casserius’ Most Beautiful Engravings
128. SPIEGEL, Adriaan van der. De Formato Foetu liber singularis... Epistolae duae anatomicae. Tractatus de arthritide. Opera posthuma studio Liberalis Cremae. Padua: J.B. de Martini & L. Pasqua, [1626]. Folio, pp. (viii), 104, including 9 fine full-page copper-engraved plates. Woodcut ornaments. Dampstain in upper inner corner (barely noticeable on the first and last 15 leaves), otherwise a fine large copy. Modern calf antique. £4500 FIRST EDITION. This rare treatise was published by Spiegel’s son-in-law, Liberalis Crema, with plates by Guilio CASSERIO. He had bought a number of plates from Casserio’s grandson, and selected nine for this book. “The plates belong to the treatise De formato foetu and deal with the pregnant uterus, placenta, and the child. They are among Casserio’s most beautiful engravings. Four of them represent entire female figures with the abdomen cut open. At their feet we see decorative landscapes. The work was published at Crema’s expense and is rare” (Choulant, p. 226). In it “Spiegel made the first observation of the occurrence of milk in female breasts at birth, gave the first denial of the presence of a nerve in the umbilical cord, and abolished the notion that the meconium in the foetal intestines argued for eating in utero on the part of the embryo” (Needham, History of embryology, pp. 99–100). The large treatise on arthritis occupies pp. 66–101.
129. STANLEY, Edward. A Treatise on Diseases of the Bones. London: Longman,... 1849. 8vo, pp. xxxi, 367. Original brown cloth, discreet repairs to spine. A few small stains, cloth a little soiled, but a very good copy. £200 FIRST EDITION. Stanley’s textbook on the pathology of bone appeared in the same year as his atlas on the same subject. “These two classical works represented for many years all that was known of the pathology of the subject of bone disease” (D’Arcy Power in DNB). In the preface Stanley remarks that he was aware of only two earlier books on the subject, those of Petit (1705) and Boyer (1803). For 53 years Stanley was a pillar of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital where his love of morbid anatomy led him, with Abernethy’s assistance and approval, to enlarge the museum so greatly that he practically created it.
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Incunable of Syphilis
130. TORRELLA, Gaspare. Dialogus de dolore cum tractatu de ulceribus in pudendagra evenire solitis. [Colophon:] Impressus Rome: per Joannem Besicken & Martinum de Amsterdam, 31 October 1500. 4to, 60 leaves. Gothic letter, 36 lines, three woodcut initials. Title-page a little soiled, dampstain in lower inner corner throughout, otherwise in very good state. Later boards. Some early manuscript notes in the margins. £16,000 FIRST EDITION of this very early book on syphilis, and Torrella’s second book on the subject. Syphilis, as it later became known, first appeared in Europe in the mid-1490s. Torrella, as papal physician, was more or less obliged to address the subject, and he had to invent a name for it. He called it “pudendagra”. “The most striking feature of Torrella’s view of Morbus Gallicus was his optimistic opinion that it was both known and curable. He claimed that he had treated successfully seventeen cases in just the two months of September and October 1497... Clearly, one strategy of a man at the top of his profession, who had by now apparently fitted a new disease into the extant medical apparatus, was the bold one of announcing his mastery of it. Since it was seen as a new disease, there were no common expectations about its durability or curability. Torrella seems to have decided to fill that space with the help of the printing press...” (Elmer & Grell, editors, Health, disease and society in Europe 1500–1800, pp. 21–22). Gaspare Torrella (c.1452–c.1520) was physician to Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia). Both came from Valencia. He was also physician to his successor, Julius II (who suffered from syphilis), to his son Cesare Borgia, and librarian of the Vatican library. BMC IV, 142. Goff T391. Klebs 980.1. Stillwell, The awakening interest in science, 536. This was the only separate edition, and is rare; it was included by Luisinus in his compendium on syphilis of 1566–7. Torrella was the only person to publish two works on the subject before 1501.
131. TRAVERS, Benjamin. A Synopsis of the Diseases of the Eye, and their treatment: to which are prefixed, a short anatomical description and a sketch of the physiology of that organ. London: Printed for Longman,... 1820. [Bound with:] Notes to a Synopsis of the Diseases of the Eye. London: G. Woodfall, printer... 1821. 2 works in 1 volume, 8vo, pp. xix, (i), 425, and 6 hand-coloured engraved plates; 30 pages. The plates rather closely cut affecting the plate numbers, signatures or imprint, some soiling and small marks, upper corner of T4 missing with loss of page numbers, library stamp on the title-page of the Notes and the paper slightly browned. Nineteenth century half calf. £850 FIRST EDITIONS. G&M 5843 (the Synopsis): “The earliest systematic treatise in English on diseases of the eye. The book became the authority in Europe and America.” Travers was the first hospital surgeon in England to dedicate himself entirely to the study of the eye. This book was the result of his observations made at the London Infirmary for Diseases of the Eye (now known as Moorfields), where he succeeded Saunders as surgeon. The very rare Notes, not normally found with the main work, includes an original report by Baron Dupuytren communicated personally to Travers. The Notes was incorporated into the second edition. Becker catalogue 379. Albert, Norton & Hurtes 2307.
132. WARREN, John C. Surgical Observations on Tumours, with cases and observations. Boston: Crocker and Brewster. London: John Churchill,... 1839. 8vo, pp. xvi, (ii), 607, 16 hand-coloured lithographed plates. Without the final preliminary blank C2. Some spotting (mostly very mild). Contemporary half calf, extremities rubbed, but a very good copy. £450 FIRST ENGLISH EDITION (the original American sheets with a cancel title had been published in London the year before). See G&M 2611.1: “First North American book on tumours.” It was continued... 64
dedicated to Sir Astley Cooper, and the illustrations are by David Claypool Johnston, book illustrator and caricaturist, nick-named “the American Cruikshank”. It was for a congenital tumour on the left side of the neck, the technique for which is described in this book, that Warren in 1846 performed the first operation under anaesthesia. This book was Warren’s “magnum opus,... a great collection of cases and remarks” (Kelly & Burrage).
133. WHITE, Charles. Cases in Surgery, with remarks. Part the first [all published]. To which is added, an essay on the ligature of arteries, by J. Aikin, surgeon. London: Printed for W. Johnston,... 1770. 8vo, pp. xv, 198, 4 leaves (the first blank), 7 folding and stilted engraved plates of artificial limbs, amputations, etc. Faint library stamp on verso of title, three plates dampstained and paper a little wrinkled in the lower margin throughout. Modern quarter calf antique. £550 FIRST EDITION. “White was equally accomplished in the three departments of medicine, surgery and midwifery, and was the first to introduce what is known as ‘conservative’ surgery. In 1768 he removed the head of the humerus for caries [see G&M 4437, the first recorded excision of the head of the humerus]; in 1769 he first proposed excision of the hip [an operation not performed for another fifty years], and was one of the first to practise excision of the shoulder joint” [see G&M 4407, “An account of a new method of reducing shoulders”] (DNB). Both case reports are included in this book.
134. WHYTT, Robert. An Essay on the Vital and other Involuntary Motions of Animals. The second edition, with corrections and additions. Edinburgh: Printed for John Balfour, 1763. 8vo, pp. x, 437. Contents leaf misbound at the end. Contemporary speckled calf, red morocco label (joints and ends of spine very nicely repaired, some slight foxing and browning). Early signature of Thomas Welsh on front free endpaper. £475 Second edition of Whytt’s most important book, and a classic of neurophysiology. See G&M 1381 (first edition of 1751). Whytt was the first to prove that the response of the pupils to light is a reflex action (“Whytt’s reflex”). He described this reflex at length and mentioned that its afferent pathways lie in the optic nerve and the efferent pathways in the third pair. See also McHenry pp. 116–119. Fulton, Selected readings in the history of physiology, pp. 265– 267: “His book...is one of the most remarkable in the history of neurology.”
135. WHYTT, Robert. Observations on the Nature, Causes, and Cure, of those Disorders which have been commonly called Nervous, Hypocondriac, or Hysteric, to which are prefixed some remarks on the sympathy of the nerves. Edinburgh: Printed for T. Becket... 1765. 8vo, pp. viii, (viii), 520. Contemporary pale calf, unlettered, ends of spine a bit worn and joints cracking, but a nice copy. £1800 FIRST EDITION. G&M 4841. “The first important English work on neurology after Willis” (McHenry). The Observations “reveals great clinical acumen and provides vivid accounts of a wide range of neurological and psychiatric patients whom Whytt attended at the Royal Infirmary. He declared that disorders variously called flatulent, spasmodic, hypochondriac, hysteric, and more recently, nervous, had become the wastebasket diagnosis for those conditions about which physicians were ignorant; and therefore he set out ‘to wipe off this reproach’ and to throw some light on these ailments. He resorted to his previous work to explain the nature of these diseases, emphasizing the ‘sentient and sympathetic power of the nerves’, and described instances of continued... 65
Item 136, by the writing master Eleazar Wigan
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referred pain — anticipating, by his explanation of the causes, modern demonstrations of the reasons for them. Whytt clarified Thomas Willis’s term ‘nervous’, already in use for over 100 years, and explained such physical phenomena as blushing, lacrimation, and sweating, brought on by emotion or passion, as owing to some change made in the brain or nerves by the mind or sentient principle. This work added significant contributions to scientific medicine” (DSB). See Comrie, History of Scottish Medicine, pp. 307–309.
Arithmetical Writing Book Engraved Throughout
136. WIGAN, Eleazar (Writing Master). Practical Arithmetick. An introduction to y[e] whole art wherein the most necessary rules are fairly describ’d in the usuall hands adorn’d with great variety of flourishes perform’d by command of hand. Design’d to be interleav’d for ye more speedy fitting of youth for merchandize or trade. [London:] Sold by I. Lenthall stationer... [n.d., 1705?]. Large 4to, fine engraved portrait of Wigan, engraved title, and 60 leaves printed on the rectos only, engraved throughout by John Sturt. Contemporary panelled sheep, ends of spine worn and joints cracking, tips of corners a little worn, a few scuff marks on the sides, but a fine and clean copy. £3750 FIRST EDITION, second issue (see below), of a primer in practical arithmetic calligraphically laid out by the writing master Eleazar Wigan, and beautifully engraved throughout by John Sturt (1658–1730), who excelled at this type of work. The 60 engraved leaves treat of Roman and Arabic numerals, money, liquid and dry measure, addition and subtraction, multiplication and division, troy and avoirdupois weights, etc., and exercises in these subjects. “Sturt was particularly celebrated for his skill as a writing engraver, and he engraved several of the works of the calligrapher John Ayres, most notably A Tutor to Penmanship, or, The Writing Master (1698), adding — as he frequently did — a frontispiece portrait of the author” (ODNB). The dating of this book is something of a puzzle. The first issue has been ascribed to 1696, the date on the portrait; the imprint is “[London:] Sold by ye author”, and it has a dedication leaf to the schoolmaster Samuel Hoadly (1643–1705); the second issue is dated to [169-?] or [1701]. This second issue has an altered imprint, and does not have the dedication leaf, possibly having been issued after the death of Hoadly, which occurred in April 1705. The entries for both issues in Wing have been cancelled, suggesting that both appeared after 1700. Very rare; COPAC lists 1 copy of the first issue and 3 of the second. Some copies have half the number of plates that are present here. Heal, A. English writing-masters, pp. 163–164. Massey, W. Origin and progress of letters, Pt. II, pp. 157–158.
137. WISEMAN, Richard. Severall Chirurgical Treatises. London: Printed by E. Flesher and J. Macock, for R. Royston...and B. Took... 1676. Small folio, 8 leaves, pp. 498, 79, 7 leaves. Half-title/imprimatur leaf before the title, title within ruled border. Paper slightly browned throughout in the margins, ink stain in lower corner of p3 and other small stains and light soiling, hole in blank lower corner of last leaf repaired, numerous pencilled marks in the margins. Contemporary panelled calf, rebacked and corners repaired, surface of sides crazed and some score-marks on the lower cover. Bookplates of A. Russell Pollock and Alberti G. Nicholls on front pastedown. £2400 FIRST EDITION. G&M 5573. An important collection of eight surgical treatises by the leading English surgeon of the period, including subjects such as gunshot wounds, tumours, and proctology. “The Severall Chirurgical Treatises of...Richard Wiseman is the leading work of a man who played the same part in the English surgery of his day that Sydenham did in the practice of medicine. Wiseman was a skilful operator, amputated above the diseased part, employed primary amputation in gunshot wounds of joints, and was the first to describe tuberculosis of the joints and
continued... 67
‘tumor albus’. He also gave the authentic account of ‘King’s evil’ [pp. 245–335]. In his treatise on gonorrhoea [pp. 1–79] he mentions the first case of external urethrotomy for stricture, which he performed with Edward Molins in 1652” (Garrison, p. 276). “His Severall Chirurgical Treatises (1676) earned for him the reputation of being the father of modern British surgery... Wiseman was almost two hundred years ahead of his fellow military surgeons in advising immediate amputation in certain cases” (Leonardo, History of surgery). Wing W3107. Norman catalogue 2253. See Zimmerman & Veith pp. 288–295.
138. Y-WORTH, William. Introitus Apertus ad Artem Distillationis; or The Whole Art of Distillation practically stated, and adorned with all the new modes of working now in use... London: Printed for Joh. Taylor... 1692. Small 8vo, pp. (xvi), 189, (3), engraved frontispiece and 4 engraved plates. Title within double-ruled border. Short worm track (mostly a single hole) in inner margin but touching a few words. Contemporary mottled sheep, spine and corners neatly repaired, lower corners of rear endpapers and last leaf missing, but a nice copy. Early signature of John Batt of Grantley on blank recto of frontispiece. £3400 FIRST EDITION of a very scarce work on distillation, illustrated with a set of copperplates showing laboratory equipment. Following the ban on the importation of French wines in 1689, a statute of 1690 set low levels of duty payable on certain distilled liquors, and Y-Worth, who had only just immigrated to England from the Netherlands, was quick to take advantage. This book describes the general principles of distilling and gives an extensive list of plant-flavoured spirits from aniseed to wormwood water, with many compounds prescribed as specific medical remedies. The preface is signed “From the Academia Spagyrica nova” in Shadwell, east London. Y-Worth also published a book on brewing in the same year. Wing Y218. Cole 1392. Duveen p. 629: “Rare.” Ferguson II, p. 558 (the Young Collection had only the second edition of 1705). Neville II, pp. 644–645.
139. YOUNG, Robert. An Essay on the Powers and Mechanism of Nature; intended, by a deeper analysis of physical principles, to extend, improve, and more fully establish, the grand superstructure of the Newtonian system. London: Printed for the author, by Fry and Couchman...And sold by T. Becket...J. Johnson...and J. Murray... 1788. 8vo, pp. xxiii, (i), 336, and 2 engraved plates with 7 figures. Original boards, printed paper label on spine, uncut. Upper joint cracked, small portion of paper spine missing, some mild foxing, but a nice, fresh copy in original state. £1600 SOLE EDITION. Young’s purpose in this book was to extend the knowledge of nature by a better understanding of the physical laws of science on Newtonian principles. Young was a social reformer who founded in 1788 a philanthropic society for the relief of poverty and of juvenile delinquents and criminals. He was also the author of An examination of the third and fourth definitions of the first book of Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia, and of the three axioms or laws of motion, published the previous year. Both this and the present work are rare, and do not appear in commerce. Wallis 173.01. Not in Babson or Gray.
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