WILLIS, Thomas
Two parts in one volume. 4to (197 x 149 mm). [56], 16, 33-565 (i.e. 563), 11 pp., 8 engraved plates of brain anatomy (5 folding); imprimatur leaf bound opposite title, longitudinal half-title g2 bound before the divisional title g1 for part one; page 563 misnumbered 565; general index at the end. Signatures: [pi]2 A4 b-f4 g2 2A-Z4 Aa-Zz4 Aaa-Yyy4 Zzz4(Zzz1 + "Zzzz Aaaa"4, Bbbb2). Bound in full contemporary speckled English calf, rebacked with new morocco spine label lettered in gilt, corners mended, endleaves renewed, dark sprinkled edges (rebacking rubbed, joints cracking). Text with light even browning, occasional spotting mostly to outer margins; instances of very faint blue vertical bands on some leaves, perhaps offsetting from bookmarks that are no longer in place; book block mostly split before p. 87; leaf Zzz4 with small patch of paper torn at fore-margin not affecting text. Provenance: Dr. Michael Stone's Psychiatry Collection. Complete except for the 4 publisher's advertisement leaves found in some copies. ---- FIRST EDITION, Oxford imprint, published shortly before the first octavo edition the same year, and thus the true first. In this earliest English work of medical psychology, Willis describes the phenomenon now known as paracusis Willisii, based on his observation of deaf woman who could hear only when a drum was beating. Willis recognized the difference between the symptoms of gross brain disease and those of mental illness. Because he postulated a disturbance of the brain and nerves in terms of disordered "animal spirits" in the absence of pathological findings, he is often considered the first to have equated mind disease with brain disease. Also includes probably the earliest description of general paralysis. References & Bibliography: Norman 2244. Garrison-Morton-Norman 1544; Hunter & Macalpine, pp. 187-92. - Visit our website to see more images!
MALPIGHI, Marcello
Two volumes bound in one. Folio (364 x 227 mm). Main titles of both volumes printed in red and black, vol. I with engraved allegorical frontispiece; in total 116 full-size engraved plates plus 7 smaller engraved plates; appendix De Ovo Incubato , De Bombyce, Pulli in Ovo and Epistolae anatomicae each with separate half-title. Pagination: Vol. I: [8], 15, [5], 1-78 (i.e. 82] p., LIV plates (15 folding), [2], 11 [1] p., VII plates, 13-35 [1] p. Vol. II: [8], 72 p, XXXIX plates; [4], 65-68, 5-44 p., XII plates; [4], 1-12 p., IV plates, 13-20 p.; [2], 1-6 p., 1 plate (folding), 7-8 p., 1 plate (folding), 9-20 p., 3 plates (folding), 21-144 p., 2 plates (folding). Bound without final blank leaf. Contemporary calf, rebacked with gilt-lettered morocco label, boards tooled in blind, corners restored, brown-dyed edges, original endpapers (boards rubbed and worn, flyleaf re-attached). Interior with occasional minor browning and foxing, dust- and finger-soiling; the plates generally quite bright and free of spotting. Provenance: Thomas Brotherton of Hey (bookplate on verso of title leaf); Stewart of Glasston (bookplate on front pastedown); inscription on first flyleaf and head of first title dated April 14, 1687. Very good, complete copy. A sometimes mentioned portrait and additional frontispiece to volume II is not an original part of this first edition. ---- FIRST EDITION and one of the grandest productions of the Royal Society, with the rare frontispiece; this handsome folio contains the collected works of Malpighi (1628-94), the founder of histology and the greatest of the microscopists; they are today very scarce on the market. This is the first complete edition of his collected works published during his lifetime and a splendid example of bookmaking. Included here are Malpighi's great masterpieces on the anatomy of plants, the embryonic development of the chick (which makes him the founder of descriptive or iconographic embryology), the anatomy of the silkworm (the first monograph on an invertebrate), the discovery of the existence of capillaries (which completed the chain of the circulation of the blood postulated by Harvey), and his observations on the lungs (which overthrew the current conceptions of the pulmonary tissues demonstrating their true vesicular nature). Malpighi's writings were first collected in Le Clerc and Manget's Bibliotheca Anatomica (Geneva: 1685), but without his Anatome Plantarum and De Bombyce. Also, "the two folio volumes of this London edition are far more handsomely printed, in much larger type, and the drawings are beautifully reproduced and widely spaced upon the plates" (Adelmann, I, p. 509). References: Sparrow, Milestones of Science, 141; Wing M342B, M344; cf. Garrison-Morton 66, variant imprint; cf. NLM/Krivatsy 7319; Nissen 2656. - Visit our website to see more images!
DESCARTES, Rene
4to (197 x 148 mm). 78; [2], 294, [26] pp., woodcut device on title-page, woodcut initials, half-titles for "La dioptrique" and "Les météores" (the former outside pagination), woodcut text illustrations and diagrams throughout (some full page). Signatures: a4 (b-k)4 (A-Z)4 (Aa-Rr)4. Bound in contemporary untouched rigid full vellum with yapp edges, spine hand-lettered and initials "B.C." on upper board, sprinkled edges, original endpapers (boards slightly bent outwards, vellum soiled and spotted, head of spine slightly damaged with cap gone). Text with even light browning throughout, occasional very minor spotting; minor pale dampstaing to fore-margin of a few leaves at beginning; a few ink marginals and text markings, rear free endpaper torn off, light dust-soiling of final text page. A very good+ copy in untouched binding. ---- RARE SECOND EDITION in French and the first published in France, of this famous work by Descartes. The original appeared in Leiden in 1637. The edition includes numerous woodcuts and diagrams in the text and on full pages from the original edition, illustrating the two treatises that follow the discourse. References: Tchémerzine, II, 778; Guibert, 17 - Visit our website to see more images!
LEGENDRE, Adrien-Marie
1805 (an XIII). 4to (264 x 212 mm). viii, 80 pp., engraved plate bound at end. Simple pink paper wrappers, all pages uncut and partly unopened (somewhat frayed and dust-soiled and spotted, endpapers browned). Light even browning and spotting, exposed outer margins of first leaves tanned, minor fraying of outer edges, light offsetting from plate to p. 80. Provenance: from a French private collection. A very good, unsophisticated copy. ---- EXCEPTIONALLY RARE FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE of this treatise with important implications in the history of statistics. Legrende is in fact believed to be the originator of the method of least squares, developed in the field of astronomy as part of statistical analysis for the observation of celestial bodies. The authorship of the method was debated as Gauss claimed its use as early as 1795. "The method of least squares is the automobile of modern statistical analysis: despite its limitations [. . .] this method and its numerous variations carry the bulk of statistical analyses. Adrien Marie Legrende published the method in 1805. [He] appears to have discovered the method in early 1805 but in 1809 Gauss had the temerity to claim that he had been using the method since 1795" (Stigler, Statistics on the Table The History of Statistical Concepts and Methods, pp. 320-325. A first supplement was published in 1806 together with a reprint of the first edition and a second one in 1820. Bibliography: Houzeau-Lancaster I, 11968; DSB VIII, p. 137-138. - Visit our website to see more images!
TORRICELLI, Evangelista
4to (250 x 180 mm). xlix [1], 96, [2] pp. Half title, title with engraved device of the Accademia della Crusca, engraved portrait of the author after Pietro Anichini, imprimatur leaf bound at the end, woodcut initials and ornaments, 3 woodcut illustrations in text. Contemporary limp vellum, spine with hand lettering in ink and printed shelf-mark paper label (minor worming to board edges, spotting and dust soiling of vellum, head of spine chipped). Text crisp and clean with only very minor occasional spotting, ink smudge to title verso. Provenance: Avvocato Ferrara, Biblioteca Mario Dotti (paper label to front pastedown and foot of spine), cancelled old ownership inscription on final flyleaf. A fine, unpressed copy in contemporary Italian binding. ---- Dibner 149; Sparrow 190; Norman 2088; Carli and Favaro 428; Cinti 169; Riccardi I, 544; DSB XIII, pp.437-38; Honeyman 2993. FIRST EDITION of these twelve posthumously-published lectures delivered to the Accademia della Crusca, the Studio Fiorentino and the Academy of Drawing. Torricelli was a student of Galileo, and succeeded him as Professor of Mathematics at Florence. "From the point of view of physics, the lectures on the force of impact and on wind are of particular interest. In the former he said that he was reporting ideas expressed by Galileo in their informal conversations, and there is no lack of original observations. For example, the assertion that 'forces and impetus' (what we call energy) lie in bodies was interpreted by Maxwell in the last paragraph of A Treatise on Electricty and Magnetism (1873) as meaning that the propagation of energy is a mediate and not remote action. In the lecture on wind Torricelli . advanced the modern theory that winds are produced by differences of air temperature, and hence of density, between two regions of the earth" (DSB). Bonaventuri contributed an essay on Torricelli and his work, and also reprinted his letters on the acclaimed barometric experiment, the subject of the woodcut illustrations. - Visit our website to see more images!
CLAIRAUT, Alexis Claude
8vo (188 x 113 mm). xl, 305, [5] pp., engraved title vignette, woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces, numerous woodcut text diagrams. Contemporary French mottled calf, spine with 5 raised bands gilt-tooled in compartments, gilt lettering piece, red sprinkled edges (wear to extremities, worming at spine ends, boards scratched, corners slightly scuffed). Quite crisp and clean throughout internally with only very minor spotting in places, title page a bit browned and soiled, ink stain to p. iii, long clean tear to leaf H4 without loss, final page spotted and with small abraded patch affecting a few letters, two oversized formula on p. 289 slightly shaved at fore-margin. Single page with annotations in light pencil. Provenance: from a French private collection. Very good copy, collated and complete. ---- FIRST EDITION of this important geophysical treatise in which the author lays the foundations of modern hydrostatics and states his famous theorem which enabled him to confirm Newton's theory of the flattening of the Earth at the poles. Alexis-Claude Clairaut (1713-1765) studied mathematics under his father Jean-Baptiste and entered the Académie des Sciences at the age of 18. In 1736-1737, he was part of Maupertuis' geodesic expedition to Lapland. Bibliography: Lalande, p. 419; Zeitlinger-Sotheran, 799. - Visit our website to see more images!
DESCARTES, Rene
1666-1667. Three volumes. 4to (222 x 168 mm). [24], 540; [16], 564, [4]; [24], 646 pp., titles with woodcut device, woodcut initials and headpieces, woodcut text illustrations and diagrams throughout. Bound without final blank leaf 4M4 in vol. III. Contemporary uniform sprinkled calf, spines with 5 raised bands each, gilt-lettered and gilt-decorated in compartments, sprinkled edges, original endpapers (minor rubbing to extremities). Text somewhat browned (some gatherings stronger), occasional minor spotting. First pp. of vol. I with minor brown-staining to outer margins, upper corner of first flyleaf and text leaf H3 of vol. I torn off not affecting text; short wormtrack at lower inner blank margin of vol. III. Provenance: from a French private collection. In all a very good, textually complete set. ---- VERY RARE FIRST COMPLETE EDITION OF THE LETTERS OF DESCARTES, by Claude Clerselier. FIRST EDITION FOR VOLUME III. These letters, which deal with philosophy, optics, medicine, chemistry and mathematics, are a landmark in the history of ideas and Cartesianism. The volume titles are: I: Où sont traittées plusieurs belles questions touchant la morale, [la] physique, [la] medecine, & les mathematiques; II: Où sont expliquées plusieurs belles difficultez touchant ses autres ouurages; III: Où il répond a plusieurs difficultez qui luy ont esté proposées sur la Dioptrique, la Geometrie & sur plusieurs autres sujets. - Visit our website to see more images!
NEWTON, Isaac
4to (245 x 181 mm). [28], 484, [8] pp. Title printed in red and black and with engraved vignette; engraved folding plate of the cometary orbit facing p. 465; woodcut text diagrams throughout. Bound in full contemporary speckled calfskin, spine with 5 raised bands richly gilt-tooled in compartments and with gilt-lettered label in second compartment, red-sprinkled edges, marbled endpapers (front joint partly split towards head; boards and extremities rubbed; head of spine scuffed with cap bands showing; corners slightly bumped and worn). Pages partially unopened at upper edge. Text with light even browning and pale spotting (folding plate stronger). Provenance: ink inscription "Sancti Arnulphi Mettensis, 1763"* on title page. ---- FIRST AMSTERDAM REPRINT OF THE SUBSTANTIVE SECOND EDITION AND "A FINE EXAMPLE OF BOOKMAKING" (Macomber-Babson). Newton made constant revisions to the Principia which, during the long interim until the second edition, circulated only in manuscript. First published in Cambridge in the previous year, the second edition is the first to include the Scholium generale, and shows considerable additions, in particular to the chapters on lunar theory and the theory of comets. The German mathematician and polyhistor Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) had published theories that were close to Newton's own, which forced him to sharpen his arguments and therefore this edition was also provided with a long anti-Leibnizian preface by Newton's editor Roger Cotes. Isaac Newton's (1643-1727) work Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica is considered "the greatest work in the history of science. Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler had certainly shown the way; but where they described the phenomena they observed, Newton explained the underlying universal laws. The Principia provided the great synthesis of the cosmos, proving finally its physical unity. Newton showed that the important and dramatic aspects of nature that were subject to the universal law of graviation could be explained, in mathematical terms, within a single physical theory. [. . .] The same laws of gravitation and motion rule everywhere; [. . .] It was this grand conception that produced a general revolution in human thought, equalled perhaps only by that following Darwin's Origin of the Species [. . .] The second edition of the Principia was not published until 1713 and the first English translation, by Andrew Motte, not until 1729" (Printing and the Mind of Man 161). "Newton's masterwork was worked up and put into its final form in an incredibly short time. His strategy was to develop the subject of general dynamics from a mathematical point of view in book I, then to apply his most important results to solving astronomical and physical problems in book III. Book II, [. . .] is almost independent, and appears extraneous. [. . .] As Karl Popper has pointed out, although "Newton's dynamics achieved a unification of Galileo's terrestrial and Kepler's celestial physics," it appears that "from a logical point of view, Newton's theory, strictly speaking, contradicts both Galileo's and Kepler's". [. . .] One of the most important consequences of Newton's analysis is that it must be one and the same law of force that operates in the centrally directed acceleration of the planetary bodies (toward the sun) and of satellites (toward planets), and that controls the linear downward acceleration of freely falling bodies. This force of universal gravitation is also shown to be the cause of the tides, through the action of the sun and the moon on the seas" (DSB). *Arnulf of Metz (c. 582-645), a Frankish bishop of Metz who retired to the Abeey of Remiremont, can certainly not been to owner of this copy, but may be a Benedictine monk who lived in the abbey before it was disestablished in 1790. References & Bibliography: Macomber-Babson, Supplement, p. 4; Wallis 11; Honeyman 2305; DSB X, p. 60-78 - Visit our website to see more images!
MALUS, Etienne Louis
4to (252 x 204 mm). 302 pp., including half-title and 3 engraved folding plates. Contemporary French prize binding of the Collège Royal de Versailles in full sprinkled calf, spine and boards tooled in gilt, spine with gilt-lettered black morocco label, marbled edges and endpapers (extremities rubbed, joint at foot of upper board with wormhole in leather, spine and boards toward spine a trifle sunned). Text and plates crisp and bright throughout with light age-toning, occasional minor spotting, a few marginal paper flaws. Provenance: Collège Royal de Versailles (bookplate to front-pastedown printed in Latin with donee "Oscar Leevy(?)" and date 18 Aug. 1810 added in manuscript). A fine copy in untouched binding. ---- RARE FIRST EDITION of Malus' prize-winning work on double refraction. Malus took part in the Egyptian expedition as an engineering officer. Director of Studies at the Ecole Polytechnique in 1811, he died the following year at the age of thirty-seven. Malus took up the work of Huygens, Newton and Wollaston. He deduced Huygens's law by means of the principle of the least action. Also of great importance is his law for the relative intensities of the ordinary and extraordinary rays. After a century of discussion, his research led to the law on the intensity of polarized light that bears his name. He studied the polarization of light by reflection and showed that his theory of double refraction was compatible with the principle of least action and the corpuscular hypothesis. References: DSB IX, pp.72-74; Schuh's Annotated Bio-Bibliography. - Visit our website to see more images!
CARNOT, Lazare-Nicolas-Marguerite
8vo (199 x 115 mm). xxviii, 303 [1] pp., 2 folding engraved plates. Bound in late 19th century cloth over blue card boards, spine lettered and ruled in black (minor soiling of spine, extremities rubbed, corners bumped and scuffed). Text crisp and clean throughout. Provenance: from the Library of the Sadi-Carnot family (catalogue of the sale "Carnot : la bibliothèque d"une dynastie" by Astrid Guillon, Paris 27 Oct. 2022, lot 86). A near pristine copy internally. ---- VERY RARE FIRST GERMAN EDITION of "Principes fondamentaux de l'équilibre et du movement" translated from a new edition, published in Paris in 1803. Itself a work that first appeared in Dijon in 1783 under the title Essai sur les machines en général. The author explains in the preface that he has made changes in the light of recent discoveries. "These developments have necessitated a new order in the subjects, and made the writing more voluminous. . . the result is a work that is in some ways entirely new. . ." (see DSB III, p.75 and 78). "Carnot remains one of the very few men of science and of politics whose career in each domain deserves serious attention on its own merits" (DSB). Famous as the French Revolution's 'Organizer of Victory,' who in 1793 successfully united fourteen armies to defend France against an immense European horde, Carnot is equally well known as a mechanical engineer and mathematician, being the author of this first theoretical treatise on engineering mechanics, in which he was the first to prove explicitly the loss of kinetic energy in the collision of bodies. Carnot's abstract approach to the problems of mechanics makes him one of the important forerunners in the field of the physics of energy. - Visit our website to see more images!
1600-1601. Two parts in one volume. Large folio (406 x 268 mm). [56] (of [60]), 191 [1]; 126, [2] pp. Engraved title, engraved portrait of the author, woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces, 34 full-page anatomical engravings (22 of the vocal organs, 12 of the auditory organs); lacking the bifolium a3-4 with the portrait of the Duke of Parma (a4) and the conjugate text leaf (a3). Signatures: a-b6 (-a3-4) a-c4 d6 A-2A4; A-Q4. Colophon on 2A4v: Ferrariae: excudebat Victorius Baldinus typographus cameralis, 1601, and Q4r: Ferrariae: excudebat Victorius Baldinus typographus cameralis, sumptibus unicorum Patavii, 1600. Contemporary full vellum, spine lettered in manuscript (vellum browned and soiled, tail of spine scuffed, minor wear and chipping to board edges and extremities, corners bumped and worn, upper slightly curved and with pen trials and signatures). Text and engravings crisp and clean, minor pale dampstaining to first and final gatherings including title, little spotting in places. Provenance. J.J. Chaponnière (inscription on title). A very good, wide-margined copy in untouched binding of the time. ---- FIRST EDITION OF ONE OF THE MOST HIGHLY DETAILED AND PENETRATING STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE ANATOMY. "Casserio began his career as the manservant of Girolamo Fabrici, who trained him in the art of dissection and encouraged him to pursue his medical studies; upon Fabrici's retirement in 1608, Casserio succeeded him in the chair of anatomy at the University of Padua. Like Fabrici, Casserio attempted to explain human anatomy by reference to the lower animals, and his De vocis, containing the first comparative studies of the vocal and auditory organs, represents one of the sixteenth century's most ambitious and detailed investigations in comparative anatomy. The work is divided into two treatises, on the anatomy of the larynx and on that of the ear. In the first, Casserio compared the human vocal apparatus to those of other mammals, birds, amphibians and even insects. He recognized the larynx to be the principal organ of voice, gave the first precise description of the cricoid-thyroid muscles and accurately depicted the superior and inferior laryngeal nerves, which he correctly assumed to originate from cranial nerves. He also was the first to understand the complex sound-producing organs on the abdomen of the cicada. In the second treatise, Casserio provided the first detailed comparative account of the auditory ossicles, the first adequate description of the mammalian osseous labyrinth, and the first representation of the ear of the fish - this last all the more remarkable in that, up to this time, no one had believed fishes to possess a sense of hearing. None of De vocis's full-page engravings, including the title engraving and portraits, are signed. The drawings for them have generally been attributed to the German painter and etcher Joseph Maurer, on the basis of a passage (cited in Choulant) in the treatise on the ear; however, recent research indicates that the engraved title and two portraits are most likely the work of Jacopo Ligozzi (1547-1626), who also illustrated specimens for the Bolognese naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi" (Norman). "A masterpiece of book illustration and the most beautiful book ever published on the ear and throat in man and in lower animals". "Casseri . . . investigated the structure of the auditory and vocal organs in most of the domestic animals. The book includes a description of the larynx more accurate than that of any previous author" (Garrison-Morton). "Medical historians rank the accuracy and artistry of the illustrations in this and other works of Casserio in the same category as those of Vesalius, with Casserio setting the standard in copperplates as Vesalius had done with woodcuts" (Heirs of Hippocrates). References & Bibliography: Norman 410; Choulant-Frank p. 223; Garrison-Morton 286; Grolier Medicine 24; Heirs of Hippocrates 397; NLM/Krivatsy 2199; Waller 1809; Well
1758-1759. Two parts in two volumes, 8vo (200 x 125 mm). [4], [1-5] 6-823 [1]; [4], 825-1384 pp. Vol. I with dedication leaf to count Tessin, woodcut tailpiece and errata on final unnumbered page. Bound in uniform contemporary half calf and sprinkled paper-covered boards, spines with raised bands and gilt-lettered brown morocco labels (outer joints and spine ends repaired, boards rubbed and spotted, wear to extremities, corners scuffed). Text with light browning, first 5 pages including title and ca. 15 final gatherings of vol. I with mostly light damp-staining towards lower gutter; very minor occasional spotting; browning from binders glue to corners of endpapers and first and final two leaves of vol. II. Edges of bookblocks show sections of different browning which indicates use of different paper stocks at time of printing. Provenance: Gustaf Rudebeck (ownership inscriptions to front pastedowns dated 1987). A very good copy, collated and complete. ---- The important tenth edition, and the definitive edition, 'THE STARTING POINT FOR ZOOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE' (Stafleu-Cowan). Linnaeus' system of binomial classification was originally published in 1735 as a series of seven folio broadsheets and originally applied to plants only. As he collected new data, Linnaeus revised and updated the Systema naturae and he eventually applied his system of classification to all of zoology, where it appears here for the first time. "In this edition, the binomial system previously employed by Linnaeus in the work entitled 'Museum Tessinianum' (1753) was extended in its application to all the kingdoms of nature" (Soulsby). This edition has been accepted as the basis of zoological nomenclature. "This is Linnaeus's final version of the system by which many plants and animals are still named to this day with reference 'Linnaeus', 'Linn' or 'L' attached" (PMM). Linnaeus' Systema Naturae lists only about 10,000 species of organisms, of which about 6,000 are plants and 4,236 are animals. Even in 1753 he believed that the number of species of plants in the whole world would hardly reach 10,000; in his whole career he named about 7,700 species of flowering plants. Linnaeus developed his classification of the plant kingdom in an attempt to describe and understand the natural world as a reflection of the logic of God's creation. His sexual system, where species with the same number of stamens were treated in the same group, was convenient but in his view artificial. Linnaeus believed in God's creation, and that there were no deeper relationships to be expressed. He is frequently quoted to have said: "God created, Linnaeus organized." The classification of animals was more natural. For instance, humans were for the first time placed together with other primates, as Anthropomorpha. As a result of the popularity of the work, and the number of new specimens sent to him from around the world, Linnaeus kept publishing new and ever-expanding editions of his work. It grew from eleven very large pages in the first edition (1735) to 2,400 pages in the 12th edition (1766–1768). Also, as the work progressed, he made changes: in the first edition, whales were classified as fishes, but in the 10th edition, published in 1758, whales were moved into the mammal class. In this same edition, he introduced two-part names (binomen) for animal species, something that he had done for plant species (binary name) in the 1753 publication of Species Plantarum. The system eventually developed into modern Linnaean taxonomy, a hierarchically organized biological classification (Wikisource). References: Norman 1359; PMM 192 (note); Dibner 27n; Soulsby 62; Stafleu & Cowan TL2 4794. - Visit our website to see more images!
Folio (323 x 200 mm). [16], 1-452 (i.e. 448); [12], 1-164, [2], 165-386; [14], 1-534 pp., bound without the leaf "Dem Buchbinder" as usual. Engraved frontispiece portrait of the author by Bernigrot fil after I.W. Stör in vol. I, half-title in vol. I only as called for, engraved vignettes on title-pages and dedication leaves, engraved headpieces, woodcut initials and tailpieces, 2 large folding engraved maps and 123 engraved sheets of plates (25 folding). Uniform contemporary calf, spines with 6 raised bands richly gilt in compartments and with gilt-lettered labels, red-dyed edges, marbled endpapers (extremities worn, boards scratched and rubbed, corners scuffed and bumped, joints partly cracked but holding firm, chipping to spine heads and foots). Text little browned (a few gatherings stronger); occasional minor spotting; several plates heavily browned as usual due to paper used, large folding plate "Tab. II" in vol. III with long clearn tear (no loss). Provenance: C. Colombini (early ownership inscription to first flyleaves). A very good set in contemporary bindings. Collated and complete. ---- FIRST COLLECTED EDITION, rarely found complete with the portrait as here. Edited by Fredrik Hekelius. The work, and specially vol. I "Principia rerum naturalium" maybe the most important Swedish work in natural philosophy. Swedenborg, best known for his contributions to natural philiosophy, religion and mysticism, was appointed assessor-extraordinary to the Swedish board of mines in 1716. In the first volume enitlted Principia Rerum Naturalium Swedenborg presents a model of the origin and evolution of our solar system. He was thus the first to formulate a nebular hypothesis, even before Kant and Laplace. "In the chapter entitled 'Solar and Planetary Nebular Matter' Swedenborg describes a theory of the evolution of the solar system somewhat within the context of his scheme of elementary and finite particles. In characteristic fashion, he reasons that the planets must have their origin near the sun [. . .] Swedenborg suggests his theory of planetary evolution as a general mechanism to explain the appearance of new stars. For as the planetary material leaves the solar vortex the star becomes visible to the observer. [. . .] Swedenborg’s structure of elements does not fit, in any exact sense, the models of present-day elementary particle physics. Furthermore, his theory of planetary evolution, based on the elements seems vague and lacking in empirical support. However, Swedenborg’s work should be viewed in the context of the contemporary natural philosophy, and most noteworthy in this regard is the essential agreement of Swedenborg’s rational cosmology with the previously developed Cartesian world view. Both Descartes and Swedenborg proposed a filled universe or plenum of several elements. Both men described mechanisms for planetary evolution, with special emphasis on the vortex as a primary motion in nature. Yet Swedenborg’s work did contain elements of originality. He worked hard to describe the 'first natural point' as the connection between the physical and nonphysical worlds. Swedenborg saw this starting point as logically important to a world system and representative of the absolutely deepest parts of nature. The Swedenborgian system of elements is more complex than the three-element system of Descartes. While further complexity does not necessarily imply progress, Swedenborg’s scheme of elements with their inner and outer parts, and their construction through the intermediate steps of the finites, is an attempt at greater differentiation of levels and motion in nature. [. . .] Perhaps most intriguing is Swedenborg’s theory of planetary evolution. A prominent theory of planetary generation is the Kant-Laplace nebular hypothesis of the gradual evolution of planets from the sun. . . Visit our website for further reading and images!
4to (214 x 159 mm). [16], 74 (of 76) leaves, title with printer's woodcut device, 12 woodcut illustrations in text of which 6 full-page; woodcut initials and headpieces. Lacking the separate plate with portrait of the author and text leaf P1 (these bound-in as good facsimilé on old paper); also missing is the final blank T4. Signatures: a4 e4 i4 o2 u2, A-T4 (-P1 -T4). Rebound in 18th century full vellum, original gilt-lettered leather label preserved on spine, sprinkled edges, new endpapers (vellum slightly dust-soiled). All leaves carefully cleaned; title page with paper repair of lower right portion with loss of last word "Roy" in final line (added in ink manuscript), some pages with short upper margin, illustration on f.25r trimmed at fore-margin just into the platemark, a few faint ink marginals. Provenance: illegible signature on final leaf, dated 1674. ---- EXCEEDINGLY RARE FIRST EDITION of Ambroise Pare's discourse against ancient medicine, according to Garrison, successfully disposed of an therapeutic superstition, which was practised by Queen Isabella, the Catholic, of Spain, and the ladies of her Court. Paré was among the first to oppose the medical use of 'mummia' or 'mummy', a substance used in the embalming of mummies. "On August 31, 1580, a powerful personage, Christophe des Ursains, was wounded in the kidneys by a large pointed stone which his back had fallen on while riding. He was brought back to his castle lifeless, his kidneys, abdomen and thighs bleeding. Treatment did nothing. He was thought to be lost. Ambroise Paré, who lived in Paris, was called in. He was in his seventies at the time, and had a long career as first surgeon to kings. Thanks to him, Christophe des Ursains was saved. Once back on his feet, he was astonished that Paré hadn't used mummy juice to treat the bruises he'd suffered. Mummy juice was said to heal bruises. Paré replied that drinking the flesh of corpses was nothing but a catch-all. Des Ursains then asked him what he thought of unicorn horn, and whether it acted against venoms and poisons as claimed. Again, nonsense," replied Paré. Invited by des Ursains to put his opinion in writing, he published his Discours de la Momie et de la Licorne (Discourse on the Mummy and the Unicorn) in 1582. This pamphlet reveals what the imagination can indulge in: it unveils an insane theory and an unheard-of bestiary. Curiosity is the order of the day. For it is more than a document: a universe of incredible beliefs" (Jean-Michel Delacomptée, presentation for the edition of the Discours de la Momie et de la Licorne published by Gallimard in 2011 in the collection "Le Cabinet des lettrés"). The edition opens with an epistle from the author to Christophe des Ursains, followed by a table and six tribute poems, signed by physicians, surgeons and a secretary to the king: Alexis Gaudin, B. de Mauron, Pierre Pigray and Gabriel de Mynut. The second piece is signed C.V.F. The text is illustrated with 12 beautiful and curious woodcuts, six in the text and six full-page. In our copy the fine copper-engraved portrait of Ambroise Paré by Etienne Delaune is missing; it has been replaced here by an expertly made facsimile reproduction. This work is in fact extremely rare. We weren't able to trace but a single complete copy at auction in the past 100 years, the CECILE ELUARD-POTTIEE-SPERRY copy which was sold at Christie's in 2015 for GBP 98,500. Two other copies that appeared on the market in the past 50 years were lacking the author's portrait. References & Bibliography: Adams P-316; Brun, p.267; Brunet, IV, 366 ("rare"); J. Doe, A bibliography of the works of Ambroise Paré. Amsterdam, 1976, no. 24; Tchemerzine V, 39 ("extremely rare"). - Visit our website to see more images!
4to (207 x 148 mm). Signatures: [pi]2 A-Z6 a-k6 l-m4 (-m4 blank). [2], 205 leaves, bound without final blank. Roman types. 57 (1 full-page) woodcut illustrations. The title flanked by 3 woodcut stars and small man-in-moon, on title verso a full-page circular woodcut of a physician demonstrating uroscopic analysis to a student, surrounded by a border of urine glasses with xylographic abbreviated captions of different diagnoses, table on facing page with the same urine glasses with full (unabbreviated) typographic captions; three small cuts at beginning of each part of a physician attending a patient in bed and performing the diagnostic procedure described in that section, several different small woodcuts of urine glasses repeated throughout part 1. Bound in sprinkled calf of c. 1800, spine gilt-tooled and with red morocco label lettered in gilt, boards ruled in gilt, red-sprinkled edges (joints partly split and wormed but cords holding firmly, minor wear to extremities). Annotations in contemporary hand throughout. Text generally quite crisp and clean; several small wormholes at beginning and end affecting text; the final third with light faint dampstaining at foot. Provenance: J.J. Chaponnière (inscribed on first flyleaf). In all a very good copy. ---- RARE FIRST EDITION, PRIVATELY PRINTED AT THE AUTHOR'S PRESS. Pinder was initially active as physicus in Nördlingen, from 1489 to 1493 personal physician to the Saxon elector Frederick the Wise and finally appointed physician to the city of Nuremberg. He was one of the first physicians to disseminate his works with the aid of printing. This diagnostic treatise divided into three sections treating uroscopy, analysis of the pulse, and the various types of fever, was printed on a press that Pinder had installed in his house in 1505, probably by his future son-in-law Friedrich Peypus, who printed at least 11 editions there between 1505 and 1513, mostly of Pinder's works. The types are those of the Printer of the Sodalitas Celtica, with whom Peypus may have learned printing. In 1515 Peypus moved the press -- apparently part of his wife's dowry -- to a new address; he remained active until 1534 (cf. Benzing pp. 332-333, nos. 12 and 15). The volume also includes Gilles de Corbeil's Carmina de urinarum judiciis, but omits the epilogue found in Choulant's edition of that text. "Pinder's edition is not listed in Choulant's bibliography of printed editions of Gilles, and contains a number of variant readings not recorded by him" (Durling). Although the woodcut illustration and table of urines were intended to be colored, being not otherwise intelligible, colored copies are rare. References & Bibliography: Norman 236; NLM/Durling 3652; Waller 7448; Wellcome I, 866. - Visit our website to see more images!
4to (314 x 248 mm). Atlas only. [8], 48, [2] pp., including half title; text illustrations; 10 chromolithographed plates, each with explanatory text leaf. Modern black cloth with gilt lettering on spine. Text with occasional light foxing. Provenance: M. Saxtorph, Professor of Surgery, Copenhagen (visiting card to front-pastedown). Very good copy with stunning colours. ---- EXCEPTIONALLY RARE FIRST AND ONLY EDITION of this atlas of ophthalmic pathology by one of the pioneers of medical photography, Arthur de Montméja, an ophthalmologist at Paris Hospital Saint Louis, who began photographing patients in 1865. Montmeja was the leading publisher of medical and ophthalmic photography. In 1870 he published, with ophthalmologist Edouard Meyer, the world's first surgical textbook Traité des Operations qui se Pratiquent sur l’Oeil with close-up photographs of surgeries. It concluded with an atlas of 22 photographs and photo-montages, taken by de Montméja as prints on albumen paper from collodion glass negative. It would be almost 30 years before a similar work was produced in any surgical field. - Visit our website to see more images!
Mikroskopische Untersuchungen über die Uebereinstimmung in der Struktur und dem Wachsthum der Thiere und Pflanzen. Berlin: Verlag der Sander'schen Buchhandlung (G. E. Reimer), 1839. 8vo (200 x 122 mm). xviii, 270 pp., 4 folding engraved plates by C. E. Weber after Schwann. Text clean and bright throughout, plates with some minor pale spotting. [Bound after:] KLENCKE, Philipp Friedrich Hermann. Neue physiologische Abhandlungen auf selbständige Beobachtungen gegründet; für Ärzte und Naturforscher. Leipzig: L. H. Bösenberg, 1843. 8vo. vi, [2], 318 pp., 4 folding engraved plates; some text illustrations. Light mostly marginal browning of text and plates. Two works in one volume. Bound in contemporary dark-green half calf over marbled boards, spine ruled and lettered in gilt, yellow dyed edges, original endpapers (rubbing of boards and extremities, minor wear to corners, upper joint partly split at foot). Provenance: Prof. Dr. R. Protsch von Zieten* (collectors stamp on first flyleaf, signed and dated 1978); Prof. Dr. Margo Tivadar Ajandéka (stamp on title) and two further including deaccession stamp ("’Értékesíthet?") at foot of title. A fine copy internally, crisp and clean throughout. ---- RARE FIRST EDITION of the "foundation of the cell theory for plants and animals" (Evans). The work formulates the first general theory of the cell as the basis of life. Schwann extended to the animal kingdom Schleiden's theory of the cell as the fundamental unit of plant life. In the first part of his book Schwann describes his microscopic research into the structure of the chorda dorsalis in frogs, which he found to consist of "polyhedral cells that have in or on the internal surface of their wall a structure corresponding to the nucleus of plant cells [. . .] He also found the structure of cartilage to be in accordance with the tissues of plants [. . .]" While retaining Schleiden's erroneous theory of cell growth, which postulated an amorphous primary liquid, or 'blastema' within which cells emerge, Schwann developed his own more accurate theories of cell development based on more detailed and thorough observations than those of his colleague. Most important of these by far was his demonstration that the body's specialized tissues - 'epithelium, hoof, feather, crystalline lens, cartilage, bone, tooth, muscle tissue, fatty tissue, elastic tissue, nerve tissue - are products of cellular differentiation. The conclusion he drew from this observation was that 'elementary parts,' although quite distinct in a physiological sense, may be developed according to the same laws" (DSB). In the final part of his book Schwann presents a philosophical overview of his study of cells, in which he speculates, in direct opposition to the then prevalent theory of the "vital force [that] 'an organized body is not produced . . . by a fundamental power guided in its operation by a definite idea, but is developed, according to blind laws of necessity, by powers that, like those of inorganic matter, are established by the very existence of matter" (DSB). Schwann's theory can thus be regarded as the origin of the school of mechanistic materialism in biology. References & Bibliography: PMM 307b; Dibner 197; Horblit 93a; Norman 1914; Sparrow 179; Evans 106; Honeyman 2827; Garrison-Morton 113; Grolier/Horblit 93a; Grolier/Medicine 62; Waller 11002; DSB XII, pp. 240-245. - Visit our website to see more images!
8vo (152 x 97 mm). [16], 279 [1] pp., title with woodcut device, 14 full-page engraved illustrations numbered I-XIIII and a small unnumbered text engraving; woodcut initials and tailpieces. Signatures: *8 A-R8 S4, including blank leaf *8. Contemporary vellum with yapp edges, spine with faint hand-lettering, original endpapers (vellum spotted and little dust-soiled). Text clean and crisp throughout with only little even age-toning; minor pale brown staining to upper blank margin of first 3 gatherings; upper blank margin of title with cut-out, short clean tears to fore-margin of leaves N2-4; light dust soiling to upper blank margin of final few pages. Provenance: Haskell F. Norman (bookplate to front pastedown); contemporary ink iscriptions on first flyleaf, one dated 1685. A very good copy in untouched binding. ---- FIRST EDITION. Nicolaes Tulp was a Dutch surgeon and Mayor of Amsterdam. "[He -] best known today as the subject of Rembrandt's painting 'The anatomy lesson of Dr. Tulp' - made numerous contributions to anatomy and pathology in this work including his description of the ileocecal valve ('Tulp's valve'), whose discovery he shared with Gaspard Bauhin. The illustrations include a depiction of an 'orang-outang,' actually a liberally enhanced portrait of a young chimpanzee. Tulp was the first European writer to use the term 'orang-outang,' and his description of the animal was probably the first account of the chimpanzee published in Europe. Edward Tyson [. . .] borrowed the title for his own treatise on the chimpanzee from the first paragraph of Tulp's account, which contains the phrase 'orang-outang, sive homo sylvestris.'" (Norman). Tulp is also remembered for signing the fitness reports for the first Dutch settlers on the island of Manhattan, and for writing, with some doctor and chemist peers, the first dispensatory of Amsterdam, Pharmacopoea Amstelredamensis (1636). References & Bibliography: Norman 2114 (this copy); NLM/Krivatsy 12007; Waller 9715; Willems 1155; Lindeboom, DMB p.2006. - Visit our website to see more images!
8vo (238 x 155 mm). [6], 269 [1] pp. Original yellow printed wrappers, uncut and partly unopened (spine repaired with slight loss of original paper due to earlier chipping, minor dust-soiling and chipping of corners); housed in black morocco and cloth folding box with gilt-lettered spine label. Light age-toning of text, a trifle dust soiling to title and edges. Provenance: eligible ink signature on front wrapper; the Haskell Norman (bookplate to inner cover of folding box); N.V. P. Noordhoff (small ink stamp to inside front wrapper); the Dr. Michael Stone's Psychiatry Collection. A fine, highly unsophisticated copy. ---- FIRST EDITION, THE HASKELL F. NORMAN COPY, AND VERY RARE IN THE ORIGINAL WRAPPERS AS HERE, OF ONE OF FREUD'S MOST IMPORTANT WORKS, THE FOUNDATION OF PSYCHOANALYSIS. "Studies in hysteria, which gives the first detailed account of the free-association method, is customarily regarded as the starting-point of psychoanalysis. Breuer had discovered the 'cathartic' method of curing hysteria in the early 1880s while treating the patient who would later be immortalized as 'Anna O.'; this patient, who exhibited a myriad of severe hysterical symptoms, found that the symptoms would disappear when she told Breuer the details of their onset. (Jones gives 'Anna O.,' whose real name was Bertha Pappenheim, a large share of the credit for inventing what she called the 'talking cure.') Freud learned of this interesting case from Breuer shortly after its termination in June 1882; it made a strong impression on him, and a few years later he began using a combination of hypnosis and the cathartic method in his own neurological practice. From this Freud gradually developed the method of free association, in which the patient was encouraged to say whatever came into his mind [. . .] however 'nonsensical' or 'irrelevant,' since Freud believed that the patient's statements provided clues about the network of associations already established in his mind, and would thus lead the therapist to the source of the patient's neurosis." 'It was through devising the new method that Freud was enabled to penetrate into the previously unknown realm of the unconscious proper and to make the profound discoveries with which his name is imperishably associated' (Jones i, p. 265) [. . .] 800 copies were printed" (Norman F25). References: Norman F27 (this copy; Garrison-Morton 4978; Grinstein 214; Stanford/Norman 22; Jones I, chs. 11; 13. Standard Edition 1893a. - Visit our website to see more images!
