CATALOGUE 43
NIGEL PHILLIPS The Cart House Paddock Field Chilbolton Hampshire SO20 6AU England
Antiquarian Books
(Member: A.B.A. & I.L.A.B.) Telephone: (+44) or (0) 1264 861186 Fax: (+44) or (0) 1264 860269 E-mail: nigel@nigelphillips.com Website: www.nigelphillips.com
Overseas orders will be dispatched by airmail unless otherwise requested. Postage and insurance are extra. EU customers registered for VAT are asked to supply their VAT number. Payment should be made on receipt of the books. Payment in sterling is preferred, but may be made in other currencies, or by Visa or Mastercard.
CATALOGUE 43 This catalogue is also available digitally as a PDF file with illustrations in colour. Further illustrations can also be seen on the website.
The cover illustration is taken from Item 37, Frata et Montalbano.
Š Nigel Phillips 2014
1.
ADAMS, William. On Contractions of the Fingers (Dupuytren’s and Congenital Contractions.) and on “Hammer-Toe”. Including two essays of Dupuytren’s contraction of the fingers, and its successful treatment by subcutaneous divisions of the palmar fascia, and immediate extension. One essay on congenital contraction of the fingers... One essay on the successful treatment of hammer-toe... And one essay on the obliteration of depressed cicatrices after glandular abscesses, or exfoliation of bone by a subcutaneous operation. Second edition. London: J. and A. Churchill,... 1892.
8vo, pp. xx, 1 leaf, pp. 154, (1) adverts, and 8 plates with 9 leaves of explanation. Half-title, 31 illustrations in the text. Original red cloth. Small label removed from foot of front pastedown, a few library stamps (on verso of title and elsewhere), but a very good, clean copy. £250 Second edition, enlarged from the first of 1879 by several additional essays and 4 more plates. “It was Adams’s use of the principle of subcutaneous surgery that led to his monograph on its use for Dupuytren’s contracture, in which he also described a method of relieving depressed scars, such as those from old tuberculous sinuses of the neck… William Adams should have his name coupled with the operation of subcutaneous fasciotomy for Dupuytren’s contracture” (Boyes, On the shoulders of giants, 1976, pp. 49–52).
2.
ADDISON, Thomas. Observations on the Disorders of Females connected with Uterine Irritation. London: Printed for S. Highley… 1830. 8vo, pp. viii, 96, + 4 pages of Highley’s adverts inserted at the end. Half-title. Foxing throughout otherwise a good copy. Twentieth century half morocco, t.e.g., other edges uncut. £350 FIRST EDITION of Addison’s first published book solely in his own name (he had published his work on poisonous agents with John Morgan the previous year).
3.
Presentation Copy ALDINI, Giovanni. Saggio di Esperienze sul Galvanismo. In Bologna: A S. Tommaso d’Aquino. 1802. 8vo, pp. (iv), 68. Original stiff Italian marbled wrappers, spine a little worn with a few pieces missing, otherwise a nice copy. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author (?) on the inside front wrapper: “Al Cittadino Ministro Marescalchi, In attestato d’ossequio L’Autore”, probably Ferdinando Marescalchi (1754–1816), Minister for Foreign Relations for the Italian Republic (1802-1805), and later, with Aldini, a senior figure in the state under Napoleon. £1800 FIRST EDITION of Aldini’s first publication under his own name on galvanism and animal electricity. Aldini was Galvani’s nephew and contributed a dissertation and notes to the second edition of his De viribus electricitatis (1792). He also wrote the important supplement to Galvani’s Dell’ uso e dell’ attiva dell’ arco conduttore nelle contrazioni dei muscoli (1794), published by the same publisher as the present work. Aldini here describe his experiments on the action of electricity on muscular movement, and the modern doctrines in physics and chemistry. He went on to publish several other books promoting Galvani’s discovery in Italian, French and English. Most copies belong to a second edition published later the same year containing a third seriesnof experiments, with 108 pages and two plates. Aldini explains in a note on the last page that publication of the third series had to be delayed, and that he had been invited to present the first two series, “the more important part”, before the Academy of Sciences. He therefore published the first two series, and took advantage of the delay to prepare the two plates. This work is so rare in either edition that it escaped the painstaking researches of Drs. Fulton and Cushing for their Bibliographical study of the Galvani and the Aldini writings on animalelectricity (1936). Three other copies of the present edition are recorded: Biblioteca Archiginnasio,Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, and the American Philosophical Society. Not in the Wheeler Gift catalogue or Ekelöf.
1
4.
BAER, Karl Ernst von. Über Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere. Beobachtung und Reflexion. Königsberg: bei den Gebrüdern Bornträger, 1828 [–1837]. 2 parts in 2 volumes, 4to, pp. xxii, (ii), 271, (1), 3 coloured plates (2 folding); 2 leaves, pp. 315, (1), 4 folding plates (1 coloured). Leaf Ff2 in volume 1 is a folding table. Contemporary (original?) German marbled boards, orange labels on spines (extremities slightly rubbed). Stamp of the Karolinska Institutet on front endpapers and foot of title-pages, and one or two small stamps elsewhere. A nice, fresh and clean set. £4500 FIRST EDITION. G&M 479. The foundation treatise on the embryology of the higher animals, Baer’s full and most comprehensive treatise on embryology. In 1827 Baer had published his slim volume De ovi mammalium, in which he described his discovery of the cell which was the mammalian ovum. In this present, much larger, work, Baer assembled with scrupulous care all the known facts on embryology, following in detail the development of the hen’s egg, the classical subject of embryological research. He proceeded from this to study the embryological development of vertebrates in general, describing their development from conception to hatching or birth, and making several important discoveries. A major contribution to the understanding of the subject was his emphasis that the embryo undergoes observable change during its life, proceeding from the apparently homogeneous to the strikingly heterogeneous. He subsequently proposed the basic principles which provided a sound basis for the foundation of a new branch of science. The second part was published incomplete. Fifty-one years later, and twelve years after Baer’s death, a portion of what was lacking was published as a second volume, in 1888. That second volume is not present here, and for obvious reasons is often not found with the first. Printing and the Mind of Man 288b. Norman Catalogue 101; Horblit 9a (both 3 volumes).
5.
BAUMÉ, [Antoine]. Didot le jeune, 1773.
Chymie Expérimentale et Raisonnée. A Paris: Chez P. Franc.
3 volumes, 8vo, 2 leaves, pp. clx, 482, (2) blank, fine engraved frontispiece portrait and 8 folding engraved plates, and 8 pages of Théophile Barrois’ adverts inserted before the half-title; 2 leaves, 671 pages, 2 folding plates; 2 leaves, 704 pages, 2 folding plates. Half-titles, different engraved vignette on each title. Some light foxing and browning throughout. Contemporary mottled sheep, spines ruled in gilt with red and green morocco labels (ends of spines neatly repaired). £900 FIRST EDITION, Cole’s edition A, the “best” edition with the portrait and the title vignettes signed. “One of the very latest and at the same time the best text books based on the phlogiston theory by one of the most distinguished eighteenth century French chemists” (Duveen). The plates depict chemical apparatus. Cole 45. Duveen, p. 53. Ferguson, I, pp. 83–84. Neville I, pp. 95–96 (this edition). Partington, III, pp. 90–95.
6.
BELL, Charles. Observations on Injuries of the Spine and of the Thigh Bone: in two lectures, delivered in the school of Great Windmill Street... London: Printed for Thomas Tegg… 1824. Large 4to, pp. xv, (i), 101, (1), 2 (adverts), 9 lithographed plates (2 folding). Original drab boards, nicely rebacked with matching paper, printed paper label (edges slightly worn), uncut edges, library label on front endpaper. Paper very slightly browned, and some offsetting from the plates, otherwise a very good, large copy. £1100 SOLE EDITION. Although the plates are not signed by the artist, they were drawn by Bell himself, and printed by Hullmandel. “The text of these two lectures, is, as usual, in Bell's typical lucid style, and the nine plates, drawn by the author, are remarkably effective. The first lecture is given over continued... 2
to a criticism of some views by…Sir Astley Cooper. The second lecture is in support of his brother, John Bell, recently deceased, certain of whose findings had been claimed by Sir Astley Cooper as his own” (Heirs of Hippocrates).
7.
First Book on a Neurosurgical Subject BERENGARIO da CARPI, Jacopo. Tractatus Perutilis et Completus de Fractura Cranei… [Colophon:] Venetiis [Venice]: per Joan. Ant. de Nicolinis de Sabio, Expensis D. Joan. Baptistae Pederzani, 1535. 4to, ff. CX, (1), (1) blank. Woodcut on title, woodcuts of instruments in the text, text printed in italics. Early limp vellum, spine neatly repaired, endpapers replaced, ties missing, yapped foreedges. A few tiny holes in the title sometime patched with a small piece of paper (2 cm. sq.), the vellum a little stained, otherwise a fine copy, complete with the colophon leaf and final blank. £9000 Third edition of Berengario’s book on head wounds, 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” (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). The two earlier editions, one undated, are virtually identical to each other. See G&M 4850.2 and Stillwell, The awakening interest in science, 600 (first edition of 1518). Putti pp. 139–141.
8.
BERNARD, Claude. Sur une Nouvelle Fonction du Foie chez l’homme et les animaux. (Extrait par l’auteur.) [In:] Comptes Rendus Hebd. des séances de l’Acad. des Sciences, t. XXXI, No. 17. (21 October 1850), pp. 571–574. Paris: Bachelier, 1850. 4to, pp. 561–592. Original pink wrappers, slightly faded, uncut, fine copy. The complete original issue of the journal, in which the paper by Bernard occupies pp. 571–574. £550 FIRST EDITION, THE ORIGINAL JOURNAL ISSUE. Bernard made his first report on the glycogenic function of the liver in 1848 (G&M 995) in a communication to the Archives Générales de Médecine. In the present paper, two years later, he provided experimental proof that the liver produces highly complex substances, including sugar with all the characteristics of glucose, from the nutriment brought to it by the blood, which are then modified for distribution to the body, as required. These two papers formed the basis of his thesis on the subject (1853), which he used to obtain his doctorate in science. Dibner, Heralds of science, 131.
9.
Inscribed BERT, Paul. Recherches Expérimentales sur l’influence que les modifications dans la Pression Barométrique exercent sur les phénomènes de la vie. Paris: G. Masson, 1874. 8vo, 2 leaves, pp. 170, (1), 6 plates of Bert’s apparatus. Half-title. Original green printed wrappers (discoloured and dust-soiled), uncut. Small pale stain in upper margin almost throughout, otherwise a very good copy. Presentation copy, inscribed by Bert in the upper corner of the front wrapper: continued... 3
“M. Ranvier. Souvenir affectueux, P. Bert”, and with the stamp of the histology department of the Collège de France in the other corner. £725 FIRST EDITION IN BOOK FORM, offprinted from the Annales des Sciences Naturelles for April of the same year, of Bert’s first book on high and low pressure physiology, a précis of his monumental La Pression Barométrique which was then in production. This book contains the essence of some of his findings presented in full in his larger work. It may properly be described as an incunable of the new science of hyperbaric medicine. The recipient of the this copy, Louis Antoine Ranvier (1835–1922), was the foremost histologist in France in the latter part of the nineteenth century. He would have known Paul Bert well — Ranvier succeeded Bert as préparateur for Claude Bernard at the Collège de France, and both were teaching in Paris at the same time.
10.
BERTHOUD, Ferdinand. L’Art de Conduire et de Régler les Pendules et les Montres: à l’usage de ceux qui n’ont aucune connoissance d’horlogerie. A Paris: Chez l’Auteur, rue de Harlay [&] Michel Lambert, Libraire… 1759. 12mo, pp. xvi (including i–ii blank), 79, (1), and 4 folding engraved plates. Contemporary mottled calf, flat spine gilt in compartments, red morocco label, marbled endpapers, red edges. Very slight crack at top of lower joint, but a nice copy. £975 FIRST EDITION of Berthoud’s first book, a manual for regulating clocks. Berthoud was, with Pierre Le Roy, the leading designer and maker of chronometers in France. He has some claim to be considered as the inventor of the so-called ‘spring-detent’ escapement. His great treatise, the Essai sur l’horlogerie, published in 1763, was already in manuscript in 1759. Baillie, Clock and watches, 1759.
11.
BERZELIUS, Jöns Jacob. Föreläsningar i Djurkemien. Stockholm: Tryckte hos Carl Delén, 1806 [–C.F. Marquard, 1808]. 2 volumes, 8vo, pp. (xii), 276, (1) errata; (viii), lix, 498, (2) errata. Original stiff blue wrappers (spines faded, vol. 1 worn at ends), uncut. Some minor foxing, but a very good, fresh set. Signature of H. Adde on titles, and A.(?) Lundquist on pastedowns. £450 FIRST EDITION of Berzelius’s first textbook, on animal chemistry, which included the results of many of his own experiments on animal tissues and fluids. “Written as a textbook for his lectures, the book contains the results of his analyses of many animal substances. As one result he found lactic acid in muscle tissue, thus confirming its existence as a distinct compound. It had been found for the first time in sour milk by Scheele in 1780” (Cole). “Berzelius’ work as the creator of the science of chemistry in general is universally known… One of his most important contributions, however, is his investigation of the substances that are produced by life on the earth. In his Lectures on Animal Chemistry [the present work], published during the years 1806–8, he expounds his conception of life-phenomena in general and, besides, records a number of fresh facts in the sphere of organic analysis, which he later still further augmented” (Nordenskiöld, The history of biology, pp. 371–372, from a long account of this book). At the instigation of Sir Humphry Davy a translation was made into English, published in two editions, and thence into German. Cole 146. Partington IV, pp. 146–147.
The Discovery of Carbon Dioxide 12. BLACK, Joseph. Experiments upon Magnesia Alba, Quicklime, and some other alcaline substances. [In:] Essays and Observations Physical and Literary. Read before a Society in Edinburgh, and published by them, vol. 2, pp. 157–225. Edinburgh: Hamilton & Balfour, 1756. continued... 4
8vo, pp. viii, 436, 4 leaves, 7 folding engraved plates (the whole volume is offered). Contemporary calf, spine gilt with red morocco label (chipped), neat repairs to spine and one corner. Bookplate of H.F. Norman, M.D. £2850 FIRST EDITION. Black’s paper in this volume is an extension of his inaugural dissertation of 1754 in which he announced his discovery of carbon dioxide. “The next year, before the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, he described the chemical experiments, considerably expanded, that had formed the second half of his dissertation. This classic paper — the chief basis of Black’s scientific renown and his only major publication — appeared in 1756 in the Society’s Essays and Observations… Here Black demonstrated that an aeriform fluid that he called ‘fixed air’ (carbon dioxide gas) was a quantitative constituent of such alkaline substances as magnesia alba, lime potash, and soda” (DSB). This paper laid the foundation of quantitative chemistry, and is one of the most important scientific papers ever published. It was selected to be number 1 of the Alembic Club reprints. Sparrow, Milestones of Science, 23. See G&M 919 (the 1754 dissertation). Evans, First Editions of Epochal Achievements in the History of Science (1934), 49. Evans, A Library of Source Materials: “Epoch making”. Partington, History of Chemistry, III, 135–141. Not in Duveen. Black’s 1754 paper is one of the great rarities of scientific literature, and is for practical purposes unobtainable. This paper, itself very rare, is therefore the earliest form in which Black’s discovery can be represented in a collection.
13.
A World Clock BLAGRAVE, John. The Art of Dyalling in two parts. The first shewing plainly, and in a maner mechanichally to make dyals to all plaines, either horizontall, murall, declining, reclining or inclining, with the theoricke of the arte. The second how to performe the selfe same, in a more artificiall kinde, and without use of arithmeticke, together with concave and convex dyals… At London: P[r]inted by N.O. for Simon Waterson… 1609. 4to, pp. x, 152 [i.e. 150, with some mispagination]. The errata leaf is bound at the end of the preliminaries and not at the end of the text, lacking the final blank. Woodcut and typographical headpieces and initials, numerous woodcut diagrams in the text. Title-page dust-soiled (see below) and with wormtrack in lower margin neatly restored, A2–A3 slightly stained and soiled, short and diminishing wormtrack in the lower margin of 8 leaves, paper flaw in the margin of C4, otherwise a fine, very clean and wide-margined copy with several leaves uncut at the fore-edge. Seventeenth century speckled calf (foot of spine a little worn, short cracks at tops of joints), black spine gilt in compartments, red morocco label (slightly chipped), upper inner hinge reinforced. Armorial bookplate of the Rt. Hon. Algernon Capell, Earl of Essex, 1701, on verso of title; stamp of Christopher St. J. H. Daniel on two endpapers. £7500 SOLE EDITION. One of the earliest English books on dialling, probably the second, preceded by Thomas Fale’s Horologiographia of 1593. Blagrave was a self-taught professional mathematician and a maker of mathematical and navigational instruments, particularly sundials. “And since dialling was a favourite amateur pursuit, a textbook and a teacher were always in demand. Blagrave is exceptionally clear and practical, and explains the various ways in which the meridian can be established by relative positions of prominent stars or with simple improvised instruments. He deprecates the elaborate dials that were designed to show planetary hours and aspects and suggests a multiple type indicating time in different great cities of the world…” (Taylor). The fact that the title-page is dust-soiled but the adjacent endpaper is perfectly clean, and that the the wormtrack appears in leaves A1, B1, C1, D1, etc, indicate that this copy remained unbound for some time. The present binding is almost certainly its first, and appears to be of the seventeenth century, but it may have been done for the Earl of Essex in 1701. The errata leaf was bound at the front because on the recto it has an explanatory note addressed “To the Reader”, so the binder bound it at the front. STC 3116. Taylor, Tudor & Stuart, 114; see also 52.
Hay Fever 14. BOSTOCK, John. Case of a Periodical Affection of the Eyes and Chest. [In:] MedicoChirurgical Transactions, vol. X, part 1, pp. 161–165. London: Printed for Longman… 1819. [And:] Of the Catarrhus Aestivus or Summer Catarrh. [In:] Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, vol. 14, pp. 437–446. London: Printed for Longman… 1828. 2 volumes, 8vo, pp. vii, 242, (1), xxiii, 435, 6 plates (1 coloured); xxiii, (i), 463, 2 folding and coloured plates. Contemporary blue half calf, some small repairs to spines, bookplates. The whole volumes are offered; Bostock’s papers occupy pp. 161–165 and 437–446 respectively in the two volumes. £250 FIRST EDITIONS. G&M 2582: “Bostock’s classical description of the ‘catarrhus aestivus’, hay fever, is also referred to as ‘Bostock’s catarrh’. It begins the modern era in the clinical recognition of hay fever. The case he described was in fact his own. He was physician to Guy’s Hospital, London.” The second of these two papers is on the history and aetiology of hay fever, G&M 2583. Major, Classic Descriptions of Disease, pp. 618–620.
15. [BOTTOMLEY, Joseph Firth]. The Velocipede. Its past, its present & its future. By J.F.B. How to ride a velocipede. ”Straddle a saddle, then paddle and skedaddle.” London: Simpkin Marshall & Co. 1869. Small 8vo, pp. (vi), iii, (i) blank, (5)–105, and 14 plates with figures numbered to 24 (one plate is unnumbered, figure 7 is bound as a frontispiece). Title printed in red and black and on thicker paper conjugate with the frontispiece. Original blue cloth, bevelled edges, upper cover and spine lettered in gilt, brown endpapers. Spine a little darkened, inner hinges and contents a little loose, otherwise a fine copy. Presentation copy, inscribed on the half-title to Bottomley’s future wife: “Elizabeth W. Tatham: with ye kind regards of ye Author. Autumn 1872.” £850 FIRST EDITION of one of the earliest books, perhaps the second, on the bicycle. It was preceded by a 20-page booklet in 1868, and by Velocipedes, Bicycles and Tricycles by “Velox”, which appeared earlier in 1869. There were several other publications on the bicycle that year in England, France and Germany, but most were pamphlets, and the present work is easily the most substantial of them. The text includes an extensive history of the bicycle, a chapter on its future, including the question on which side two riders should pass each other, and, as promised in the preface, an account of the author’s first four-wheeled version: “Riding a two-story Indian hog just turned loose to fat on beech nuts would be sweet cream in comparison to this invention” (p. 90). Nevertheless, it became the world’s most popular mode of transport. Bottomley (1842–1889, latterly Joseph Firth Bottomley Firth) was a politician and municipal reformer (see his entry in ODNB). His wife was the daughter of a Yorkshire wool magnate.
16. BOUTEILLE, Étienne Michel. Traité de la Chorée, ou danse de St. Guy. Paris: Chez Vinçard,... 1810. 8vo, pp. (vii), viii, 362, 2 leaves (contents and errata). Signed by Bouteille on the verso of the title to prevent forgery. Contemporary blue quarter morocco, fore-edges of boards rubbed, but a very good copy. £550 FIRST EDITION. The first separate treatise on chorea, or St. Vitus’ Dance. Bouteille pointed to the frequency of joint pains in people suffering from chorea. He noticed that in four of his cases arthritic rheumatism preceded the chorea, whereas in another case it followed it. McHenry p. 406. Finger, Origins of neuroscience, p. 222.
17. BOWMAN, Sir William. Lectures on the Parts concerned in the Operations on the Eye, and on the structure of the retina, delivered at the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital, Moorfields, June 1847. To which are added, a paper on the vitreous humor; and also a few cases of ophthalmic disease. London: Longman,... 1849. continued... 6
8vo, pp. xii, 143, + Longman’s adverts inserted at the end, figures in the text. Original green blindstamped cloth. Old library stamp on title, paper slightly browned, part of spine very slightly marked by damp, but a nice fresh copy. £480 FIRST EDITION IN BOOK FORM. G&M 1505: “The above work is the first to include a sound description of the microscopical anatomy of the eye and the ciliary (‘Bowman’s’) muscle. The book consists of several lectures given at the London Ophthalmic Hospital and published in the London Medical Gazette in 1847. Part of it is reprinted in Medical Classics, 1940, 5, 292–336. Bowman did more than any other man to advance ophthalmic surgery in England.” “In 1847 Bowman gave his famous six lectures…published later as a book that is one of the classics of ophthalmological literature” (Gorin 142–144). See also D’Arcy Power’s personal memoir in DNB.
Pioneer Work in Diabetes 18. BRUNNER, Johann Conrad. Experimenta Nova circa Pancreas. Accedit diatribe de lympha & genuino pancreatis usu. Amstelaedami [Amsterdam]: Apud Henr. Wetstenium, 1683. Small 8vo, pp. (xiv), 168, (8), engraved title and 4 engraved plates (2 folding). Paper of first gathering and last few gatherings a bit browned, blank area of title neatly restored just touching one letter. Contemporary limp vellum, stain on fore-edge of lower cover, otherwise a nice copy. Bookplate of H.F. Norman, M.D. £1800 FIRST EDITION. G&M 3927. The Swiss physician J.J. Brunner came near to discovering pancreatic diabetes. He made experimental excisions of the spleen and pancreas in the dog keeping the animal alive, with normal digestion, for some time after. He found after one of these excisions that the dog had extreme thirst and polyuria, and Brunner had thereby conducted a pioneer experiment on the internal secretions of the pancreas. Brunner was probably assisted in his experiments by his friend and compatriot J.C. Peyer, who had made the original discovery of the lymphoid follicles in the small intestine in 1677. These two discoveries put paid to the short-lived glory of the role of the pancreatic juice in digestion proposed by Sylvius and De Graaf. Apart from the two treatises by Brunner mentioned in the title, this book also contains a communication by Peyer, and Brunner’s answer. For a good account of this work see Ralph H. Major, “Johann Conrad Brunner and his experiments on the pancreas” in Med. Hist., 3rd series, III, 91–100 (1941). Foster, Lectures on the history of physiology, 162–164. Norman Catalogue 362 (this copy).
The Revival of Plastic Surgery 19. CARPUE, Joseph Constantine. An Account of Two Successful Operations for Restoring a Lost Nose from the Integuments of the Forehead, in the cases of two officers of His Majesty’s army: to which are prefixed, historical and physiological remarks on the nasal operations; including descriptions of the Indian and Italian methods. With engravings, by Charles Turner, illustrating the different stages of the cure. London: Printed for Longman… 1816. £15,000 FIRST EDITION. The first book of modern times on plastic surgery, reviving the work of Gaspare Tagliacozzi in the sixteenth century. “Tagliacozzi’s work remained virtually forgotten until the revival of plastic surgery by Joseph Constantine Carpue and Carl Ferdinand von Graefe [1818] in the early nineteenth century” (Grolier One Hundred (Medicine), 23). “But it was Joseph Constantine Carpue who performed the first rhinoplastic operations in Europe in modern times, using the forehead flap of the Indian method, in October 1814 and January 1815, and who in 1816 published the work that stimulated surgeons in Germany and France to follow his example, thus initiating the manifold activities that culminated in plastic surgery as we know it today. In An Account of Two Successful Operations for Restoring a Lost continued... 7
Nose, Carpue not only described his first two rhinoplasties but also gave careful and detailed consideration to Tagliacozzi and his method, to the Indian method, and to the doctrine of adhesion and the physiological processes involved. His publication is a landmark in the development of plastic surgery, both as a record of his own surgical achievement and as a classic in the history of plastic surgery” (Gnudi & Webster, pp. 315–316). This book is the greatest classic of plastic surgery after Tagliacozzi. Carpue takes the unusual step of stating on the title-page that the plates for his book were engraved by Charles Turner, “the most important mezzotint engraver of his day” (ODNB). In 1812 Turner was appointed engraverin-ordinary to the king (the book is dedicated to the Prince Regent). G&M 5737. Gnudi & Webster, The life and times of Gaspare Tagliacozzi, pp. 315–320, illustrating three of the plates. Zeis Index 509. This was the only English edition (until a modern reprint).
20. CHAPTAL, Jean Antoine Claude. Élémens de Chimie. Quatrième édition. A Paris: Chez Deterville,… An XI — 1803. 3 volumes, 8vo, 3 leaves, pp. (iii)–xcii, 361; 2 leaves, pp. 458; 2 leaves, pp. 496. Contemporary calfbacked boards, spines gilt with red labels. Mild foxing at the beginning of vol. 1, three joints just cracking, but a very attractive and clean set. £350 Fourth edition, essentially a reprint of the revised and expanded third edition. This was one of the most important textbooks of chemistry of the period; it was written for the course of chemistry which Chaptal gave at Montpellier where he was appointed to the new chair of chemistry in 1780. In this work, Chaptal “develops the general principles, pointing out their consequences and their applications. He adopts Lavoisier’s oxygen theory which he found of great benefit in both theoretical and practical chemistry. In this work he proposes that the name azote be changed to nitrogene” (Cole, note to the first edition). Cole 257. DSB III, pp. 198–203. Partington, III, pp. 557–560.
21. CHARLETON, Walter. Exercitationes Pathologicae, in quibus morborum penè omnium natura, generatio, & caussae, ex novis anatomicorum inventis sedulò inquiruntur... Londini: Apud. Tho. Newcomb, 1661. 4to, pp. (xxiv), 208. Half-title. Contemporary mottled sheep, sometime rebacked, spine gilt but surface rubbed and chipped in places. Paper somewhat browned but still crisp. £1800 FIRST EDITION. “Among Charleton’s best-known achievements was his introduction of Gassendian atomism to seventeenth-century England. The present work is a hypothetical discussion of the causes of diseases (i.e. hatred as the cause of leprosy); it also deals with the problem of abnormal embryonic development, which Charleton attempted to explain in terms of atomism, vitalism and Harvey’s theory of epigenesis” (Norman). Wing C3673. Norman Catalogue 460. This is one of Charleton’s rarer works, and was not in the collection formed by Dr. Garth Huston and offered for sale by Jeremy Norman & Co. in 1989. This copy is the first issue, with only Thomas Newcomb’s name in the imprint, and the date on the titlepage misprinted and actually reading 2061.
22. CHEYNE, John. An Essay on Hydrocephalus Acutus, or Dropsy in the Brain. Edinburgh: Printed for Mundell, Doig, & Stevenson; and J. Murray, London. 1808. 8vo, pp. viii, (9)-218. Errata slip pasted on the last page. Without the final advert leaf. Library stamp at top of title. Good modern half calf antique, very good copy. £1500 FIRST EDITION. The first description of acute hydrocephalus. The work is a continuation of the monograph of Robert Whytt, and sharply criticises the views of Benjamin Rush. It includes carefully recorded case histories and autopsies. continued... 8
Cheyne wrote the first noteworthy monographs on neuropathology to appear in the nineteenth century, and is remembered eponymously by “Cheyne-Stokes respiration”. He was a pupil of Charles Bell, to whom this book is dedicated. G&M 4635. See McHenry pp. 248–249, and Spillane, The Doctrine of the Nerves, p. 176. Abt Paediatrics, pp. 84–85. Norman Catalogue 472. Rare.
23. CHEYNE, John. The Pathology of the Membrane of the Larynx and Bronchia. Edinburgh: Printed by and for Mundell, Doig, and Stevenson… John Murray, and Cradock and Joy, London… 1809. 8vo, pp. iv, (iv), (9)–204, and 8 engraved plates. Unobtrusive library stamp on the plates, otherwise a fine copy. Good modern half calf antique. £650 FIRST EDITION. G&M 3252: “Cheyne’s important book deals mainly with the lesions of croup.” Four of the plates are from drawings by Charles Bell; the others are unsigned. This book is actually a second edition of his essay first published in 1801 as part of his Essays on the diseases of children, under title “Of cynanche trachealis or croup”, which consisted of only 72 pages and 5 plates, but is so greatly enlarged and revised as to constitute a new work. Abt, Pediatrics, p. 84: “…his classic.”
24. CLEOBUREY, William. A Full Account of the System of Friction, as adopted and pursued with the greatest success in cases of contracted joints and lameness, from various causes, by the late eminent surgeon, John Grosvenor, Esq. of Oxford: with observations on those cases to which it is most applicable. The third edition, considerably enlarged: with a portrait and memoir of Mr. Grosvenor. Oxford: Printed and sold by Munday and Slater... 1825. 8vo, pp. xxvi, 1 leaf, pp. 170, 1 leaf (errata and imprint), lithographed frontispiece portrait (included in the pagination) of Grosvenor by N. Whittock. Contemporary half calf, flat spine gilt with black morocco label (a little chipped, small wormhole in lower joint), brown endpapers. Faintly dampstained throughout (more noticeable on the rear endpapers) and the paper slightly wrinkled, but still a crisp copy. £320 “John Grosvenor (1742–1823) was born at Oxford in 1742…[and] received a medical education at Worcester and the London hospitals. He became anatomical surgeon on Dr. Leo’s foundation at Christ Church, and was long the most noted practical surgeon in Oxford… He was specially successful in his treatment of stiff and diseased joints by friction” (DNB). This “third” edition may be the only edition; it is the only one in COPAC, and the only one noted by the DNB.
25. CONOLLY, John. An Inquiry concerning the Indications of Insanity, with suggestions for the better protection and care of the insane. London: Printed for John Taylor, 1830. 8vo, pp. vi, 496. With the half-title, publisher’s advertisements inserted at front and back dated September 1830. Original mauve cloth, rebacked (spine and edges faded to brown as usual), modern paper label, uncut edges. One or two small marks, but a very good copy. £650 FIRST EDITION. “…the first book which attempted to link normal and abnormal states of mind, ‘to render the recognition of insanity less difficult, by showing in what it differs from those varieties of mind which approach the nearest to it’…” (Hunter & Macalpine). Conolly recognised that mental illness cannot be understood without knowledge of the healthy mind. He recommended establishing clinical schools in insane asylums, and was the first to suggest the idea of a mental health service by local mental hospitals. This was the first of his three important books which revolutionised the care of the insane not only in Britain but throughout the civilised world. See Hunter & Macalpine pp. 805–809. continued... 9
“The Inquiry concerning the Indications of Insanity (1830) by Dr. Conolly is worthy of especial notice…for the remarkable ability and sound judgment with which all its views are conceived and supported” (Ray, A Treatise on Medical Jurisprudence, 1839, pp. vi–vii). Leigh, The historical development of British psychiatry, pp. 231–240. Norman Catalogue 503.
26.
COOPER, Sir Astley [Paston]. The Principles and Practice of Surgery, founded on the most extensive hospital and private practice, during a period of nearly fifty years; with numerous plates… Edited by Alexander Lee… London: Printed for E. Cox… 1836 [–1837, –1843]. 3 volumes, 8vo, pp. xxvii, 490, engraved frontispiece portrait and 18 coloured plates + 18 leaves of text; pp. xxviii, 495, and 16 plates (10 partly coloured) + 17 leaves of text; pp. xxiv, 749. Lacking a half-title in volume 3. Small and fairly insignificant library stamp on portrait and plates, larger stamp in upper corner of title of volume 3, a few plates slightly shaved, a few small marks but generally a clean set. Nineteenth century half sheep, red morocco label on spines. £750 First edition of Alexander Lee’s edition of Astley Cooper’s course of lectures, and the best edition, with more text and plates than Tyrrell’s edition. “Cooper’s surgery thus became the standard textbook of the day and held this position for many years after his death. The last rendering was by Lee,…a three-volume work. The monographs on hernia, fractures and dislocations, the testis and breast are also incorporated in these, making a very impressive and comprehensive series further embellished by illustrations. Even today today these lectures well repay reading for the sound and excellent surgical instruction they contain” (Brock, p. 108). See Brock, The Life and Work of Astley Cooper, chapter XIII, where he discusses these lectures, which Cooper never published himself in book form.
27. COOPER, Bransby Blake. The Life of Sir Astley Cooper, Bart., interspersed with sketches from his note-books of distinguished contemporary characters. London: John W. Parker, West Strand. 1843. 2 volumes, 8vo, pp. xxiv, 448, engraved frontispiece portrait; viii, 480. Lacking a half-title (?) in volume 2, foxing on the portrait (as usual). Contemporary half calf, spines richly gilt in compartments, marbled sides, edges and endpapers, a handsome set. £120 FIRST EDITION of the principal source for the life of the most eminent London surgeon of his time.
28. COURTIAL, Jean Joseph. Nouvelles Observations Anatomiques sur les Os, sur leurs maladies extraordinaires, & sur quelques autres sujets. A Paris: Chez Laurent d’Houry…1705. 12mo, pp. (xvi), 221, (3). Woodcut device on title, woodcut head- and tailpieces. Contemporary calf, spine gilt in compartments, head of spine and one corner worn, but a nice copy. Small library stamp on front endpaper, title (with small piece excised from the fore-edge), and dedication, old bookplate removed from front free endpaper, early signature of Dr. Dupuis on title. £550 FIRST EDITION of one of the first books on the anatomy and diseases on bones, published in the same year as (and probably before) Petit’s book, and by the same publisher. Jean Louis Petit’s L’Art de Guérir les Maladies des Os was the first important book on the diseases of bones. Petit’s book could not have been published before June 1705, the latest date of its Approbation, whereas the latest date in Courtial’s Approbation is May 1704, and the Privilege much earlier. About half of Courtial’s book is on the diseases and anatomy of bones. The remainder is taken up with miscellaneous medical observations, including a wound of the heart, an extra-uterine pregnancy, etc. The final 36 pages are a dissertation on the nature and properties of the air. Courtial came from Toulouse and was physician in ordinary to the king. This was his only book, and this first edition is rare. The second edition (Leyden, 1709) incorporated Petit’s book.
10
29.
CRAMER, Johann Andreas. Elements of the Art of Assaying Metals. In two parts. The first containing the theory, the second the practice of the said art. The whole deduced from the true properties and nature of fossils... Translated from the Latin.. With an appendix, containing a list of the chief authors that have been published in English upon minerals and metals. London: Printed for Tho. Woodward...and C. Davis... 1741. 8vo, pp. (xii), 208, 201-470, (8) index, 6 folding engraved plates of assaying apparatus. Some light browning, pale dampstain in upper margin of the first part, and a brown offset on the title-page from a slip pasted to the free endpaper. Contemporary calf, neatly rebacked, sides rubbed, but a good copy. £900 FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH of the first textbook of assaying. Originally published in 1737 as Elementa artis docimasticae, it was a “profusely illustrated work [which] encompassed the entire art of assaying in two parts, one theoretical and one practical. In the preface he referred to the works of Agricola, Lazarus Ercker, and Stahl. All the instruments and apparatus of contemporary analytical chemistry were depicted and described exactly. In the Elementa, Cramer first described the use of the blowpipe in smelting small amounts of substances and in analyzing them. The sample was heated to glowing over charcoal, and in many cases borax beads were also utilized… In 1738 and 1739 Cramer made a long trip through England to learn more about the subject, and he gave lectures in London” (DSB). Cole 300: “…considered one of the best works of the period on the subject.” Partington II, 701–711.
Important for its Illustrations 30. CROCE, Giovanni Andrea della. Chirurgiae…Libri Septem. Quamplurimis instrumentorum imaginibus arti chirurgicae opportunis suis locis exornati, theoricam, practicam, ac verissimam experientiam continentes… Venetiis [Venice]: Apud Jordanum Zilettum, 1573. Small folio, ff. (iv), 142, (8) including the final blank leaf. With 5 large woodcuts of surgical operations and numerous smaller woodcuts mostly of instruments, woodcut device on the title. Small repair to fore-edge margin of S3–S5, Z3–Z4 lightly browned and with minor repairs in the fore-edge margins, a few other leaves very lightly browned and some minor dampstains. Early (original?) paste paper boards, no free endpapers, uncut edges. ASSOCIATION COPY, inscribed at the foot of the title-page by Francesco de Bustis (“Ad usum mei Francisci de Bustis a Vidua”), a surgeon who assisted the author and is mentioned by him in this work. £19,500 FIRST EDITION. G&M 4850.4. One of the most important iconographic sources for early surgical instruments, and one of the great illustrated medical books of the sixteenth century, with about five hundred woodcuts depicting all the best known and most frequently used surgical instruments from antiquity to the time of publication, the most complete collection of surgical instruments published to date. Three half-page illustrations show surgery of the head in progress; these are the first illustrations to show the stages of such an operation, and a typical room in which it was carried out (at home in a canopied bed with the family, servants, cats, dogs and mice all in attendance), which are the first illustrations of an operating room. Croce improved the trephine and gave important descriptions of cranial and cerebral disease. He also gave excellent recommendations for wound management, and commented extensively on gunshot wounds. Two full-page woodcuts show operations on the battlefield. Croce was one of the most successful surgeons in Venice during the years of warfare with the Turks, who are depicted in the last full-page woodcut. This is a very large, uncut copy, in which the woodcuts are preserved entire. In most copies the edges have been cut and the woodcuts, which extend several centimetres beyond the text, are shaved or cropped. This is a true association copy. Francesco de Busti, called della Vidua, was an assistant surgeon or dissector to Della Croce, and is mentioned in this work (on p. 31 of the 1583 Italian edition) as one of the “most truthful witnesses” to the many dissections and operations on the cranium continued... 11
Item 30, Croce. that he carried out “with his own hands.” For more on de Busti, see E.A. Cicogna, Delle Iscrizioni Veneziane, vol. 1, p. 337: “Un Francesco de Bustis a Vidua è registrato fra gl’incisori anatomici e fra i priori del Veneto Collegio Chirurgico dal dottor Francesco Bernardi all’anno 1584 e 1602. Questo de Bustis è pure nominato dal celebre Giannandrea Dalla Croce nella sua Chirurgia (Libro II [i.e.I], Trattato I) siccome uno di quei professori che alle sue operazioni anatomiche intervenivano.” There are 10 short annotations by de Bustis in the margins and 1 longer one. Walker, History of neurological surgery, pp. 18–19 and 225–227, reproducing several woodcuts. This first edition is rare, especially in an uncut state.
31. DELPECH, J[acques Mathieu]. De l’Orthomorphie, par rapport a l’espèce humaine: ou recherches anatomico-pathologiques sur les causes, les moyens de prévenir, ceux de guérir les principales difformités et sur les véritables fondemens de l’art applelé: Orthopédique. Paris: Chez Gabon,... 1828. 2 volumes 8vo and small folio atlas; 4 leaves (the last blank), pp. ix, 382; 2 leaves, pp. 402; atlas of 114 pages and 77 engraved and lithographed plates (2 folding) numbered to 78 (as is correct; plate 58 was never issued). Nineteenth century maroon roan-backed boards. Some foxing, principally on the end leaves of each volume, otherwise a good uniform set. £2400 FIRST EDITION. G&M 4315. “The only work in existence which professes to give a general and complete view of the deformities of the human body” (Lionel J. Beale, A treatise on the distortions…of the human body, 1833, p. xi), and one of the best illustrated books in orthopaedic literature. Delpech did more than any other man toward the development of orthopaedics in France. He pioneered the use continued... 12
Item 31, Delpech. Orthopaedic exercises for young ladies. of gymnastics in treating deformities, and the operation of subacute tenotomy (described in volume 2 of this book), and established the tuberculous nature of Pott’s disease and the true function of the ligaments. “He founded the first orthopaedic institute in France, and wrote Orthomorphie, a book based entirely on personal experience. This book, with its atlas of beautifully printed, instructive illustrations of orthopaedic devices, is a masterpiece, the study of which (apart from a few instances of verbosity) is pure joy. It should be remembered that his name is inseparable from one of the most significant discoveries of operative orthopaedics, namely subcutaneous tenotomy. The beginning of modern orthopaedics is traced back to Delpech” (translated from the German of Valentin, pp. 96, 196, etc.). Bick pp. 120, 397, etc. Keith pp. 192–193 (“…merits our most serious attention”).
32. DESAGULIERS, John Theophilus. Physico-mechanical Lectures. Or, an account of what is explain'd and demonstrated in the course of mechanical and experimental philosophy ... wherein the principles of mechanics, hydrostatics and optics, are demonstrated and explain'd by a great number of experiments. Design'd for the use of all such as have seen, or may see courses of experimental philosophy. London: Printed for the Author… 1717. 8vo, pp. [iv] 80, type ornaments and several woodcut diagrams in the text. First two leaves a little browned (as in other copies seen). Modern quarter calf antique, marbled sides. £900 FIRST EDITION. The rare first publication of Desaguliers’ lecture course on astronomy, mechanics, hydrostatics, optics, electricity and machinery, among the first public science course in Britain to be printed. Newton asked Desaguliers to repeat some of his experiments on heat in 1713, and before long he had become de facto curator of experiments to the Royal Society, being elected a fellow in 1714. Although not the first to lecture on Newtonian science, “it was Desaguliers who popularized the demonstrative lecture in Britain” and he “occupies a leading position (along with continued... 13
Keill, Pemberton and Maclaurin) among those who gave Newtonian science its ascendancy in eighteenth-century England” (DSB). He was the preeminent scientific lecturer in Britain until his death, delivering his course more than 120 times. This is Desaguliers’ first publication of his lectures. A transcript by one of his students was published without his consent in 1719 and re-issued in the same year by him with corrections. An 8-page syllabus was published in 1725 and the full publication was eventually published in two volumes in 1734 and 1744 with 78 plates.
The Only Known Copy 33. ELLIOTT, Henry (Clock-maker). The Clock-Maker’s Assistant: or, a treatise concerning the calculation of all manner of numbers belonging to all sorts of clocks. As also the calculation of the lengths of all sorts of pendulums, for the benefit of the publick. London: Printed for the author… 1726. 12mo, pp. (vi), (7)–107. Woodcut and typographical ornaments throughout. Contemporary speckled calf, ends of spine and tip of one corner worn, joints cracked but perfectly tight. Some light foxing (a little heavier on the title), but a nice copy. Provenance: J. Richardson, with his early signature in the corner of the front free endpaper; Joshua Walker of Bradford, with his signature “Jos. Walker Brad: 1791” below Richardson’s, and his initials dated 1790 in the upper corner of the title-page; William Leatham, with his bookplate on the front pastedown (see below). £5500 FIRST EDITION, and the only known copy. Henry Elliott was a London clockmaker. He wrote this treatise for the benefit of his colleagues in the trade, and it contains calculations for making springs, wheels, etc. and the lengths of pendulums for various kinds of clock movement, as well as a section on chimes containing a woodcut illustration of the different types of musical notes (whole, half, quarter, etc.). It is one of the earliest English works on the technicalities of making a clock, William Derham’s The Artificial Clock-Maker (1696) being the only obvious earlier example. This copy has an interesting provenance: Joshua Walker (1746–1817) was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, and became a prominent physician in Leeds. His daughter Margaret married William Leatham, a banker in Wakefield. Bound between pages 68 and 69, with an annotation on both pages, is an additional blank leaf with technical details, probably in Walker’s hand, of Bradford Piece Hall clock. Bradford Piece Hall, where woollen cloth was traded, was built in 1773 and Walker may have paid for the clock that was mounted in the wall above the door. A further note on this leaf gives brief technical details of a spring clock made for Walker by Thomas Ogden (1692–1769), a Halifax clockmaker, who was to some the finest of all northern clockmakers. This book is extraordinarily rare, with no copies recorded in ESTC, NUC, or OCLC. Neither Elliott nor his treatise is cited in Baillie’s Clocks and Watches or The Clockmakers’ Library. It is extremely unusual to add a new work to the existing eighteenth century literature of horology. There were no other editions.
Vaccination in Italy 34. FANZAGO, Francesco [Luigi]. Memoria Storica e Ragionata sopra l’Innesto del Vajuolo Vaccino. In Padova [Padua]: [no printer or publisher, 1801]. [Bound with:] [2.] ODIER, L[ouis]. Memoria sopra l’Inoculazione della Vaccina in Ginevra... Tradotta dal Francese con aggiunte concernenti i successi della vaccina. In Padova [Padua]: [no printer or publisher], 1801. [And with:] [3.] SACCO, Luigi. Osservazioni pratiche sull’ uso del Vajuolo Vaccino come preservativo del Vajuolo Umano. Edizione II. Padova [Padua]: A spese di Pietro Brandolese, 1801. 3 works in 1 volume, 8vo, 74 pages, 1 leaf (blank); pp. viii, 46, 1 leaf (blank); 174 pages, 1 leaf (blank), 2 engraved plates on 1 folding sheet. Contemporary sheep-backed boards, label missing from spine but fine copies. £600 continued... 14
Three of the earliest Italian works on vaccination. Jenner’s Inquiry was published in Italian in 1800. [1.] FIRST EDITION. Fanzago was professor of pathology at the University of Padua. [2.] FIRST EDITION IN ITALIAN. Odier was responsible for first publishing the Inquiry in French, and perhaps also for adopting the term “vaccination”. [3.] Second edition in the same year as the first. Sacco was the first writer on vaccination in Italy, and the present book preceded his larger Trattato di vaccinazione by eight years. The plate was reproduced in his later book in a coloured version. He was director of vaccination in Lombardy, and was largely responsible for the success of vaccination in Italy.
35. FERRIER, David. The Functions of the Brain. Second edition, re-written and enlarged. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1886. 8vo, pp. xxiii, 498, 137 text figures. Original green cloth, extremities very slightly rubbed, but an excellent, very clean copy. Signature of John G. McKendrick (1841–1926), Scottish physiologist, on the half-title. £350 Second and better edition of this classic book, the culmination of Ferrier's pioneer work on the localisation of cerebral function. See G&M 1409 (first edition of 1876). McHenry pp. 219–223.
36. FOURCROY, [Antoine François] de, and [Jean Jacques] DELAPORTE. Analyse Chimique de l’Eau Sulfureuse d’Enghien, pour servir a l’histoire des eaux sulfureuses en général. A Paris: Chez Cuchet… 1788. 8vo, 2 leaves, pp. (vii)–xx, 385, (1). Half-title, woodcut head- and tailpiece. Contemporary sheepbacked boards, flat spine gilt with red morocco label (upper joint cracked and a little loose, short crack at top of lower joint, head of spine worn, label chipped). Library stamp on half-title, faintly on the title, and lower corner of a few other pages. £400 FIRST EDITION. At the behest of the Faculty of Medicine, and “with the collaboration of Delaporte (of the Royal Society of Medicine) Fourcroy made very detailed analyses of the waters of Enghien, in the valley of Montmorency, and a large quantity was brought to Paris for further study. A full account of these waters was read by Fourcroy at ten successive meetings of the society and subsequently published in the present book… A balneological and analytical chemical classic, which is ‘entirely chemical in content’ (Duveen)” (Neville). As a result of this analysis the waters were recommended for various ailments, and Enghien developed into a fashionable resort. The book includes two further studies, on the waters of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (by Chappon), and Vaugirard. Cole 486. Duveen p. 225. Neville I, p. 474. Smeaton, Fourcroy, pp. 21–22 and 115–117 for a full account of this highly detailed book; bibliography no.
“One of the Most Important of the Early Books on Mining” 37. FRATA ET MONTALBANO, Marco Antonio della, Marchese. Pratica Minerale. Trattato… In Bologna: per li Manolessi, 1678. 4to, 5 leaves (including the engraved title), pp. 2, 183, (1), 1 leaf, 39 pages. Engraved title incorporating 15 mining and smelting scenes, large armorial woodcut device on title, and 29 engravings in the text (of which 22 are full-page). Foxing on the 4 leaves of sig. B and very minor spotting elsewhere. Contemporary vellum, some worming in the spine but a nice copy. £11,500 FIRST EDITION of this extremely rare and important book; this is considered to be “one of the most important of the early books on mining'” (Adams). The excellent engravings depict chemical, metallurgical, and mining operations. continued... 15
Item 37, Frata et Montalbano. “This author supported Agricola in the view that metals and ores did not spring spontaneously into being at the moment of the earth’s Creation… This was an important step in the correct understanding of the origin of ore deposits” (Hoover). Adams, The Birth and Development of the Geological Sciences, p. 306. Hoover 322. Duveen, p. 229: “The plates are of very unusual quality… No reference to this work can be found in the usual authorities.”
38.
GAY-LUSSAC, Joseph Louis. Instruction sur l’essai des matières d’argent par la voie humide. Publiée par la Commission des Monnais et Médailles. Paris: De l’Imprimerie Royale, 1832. 4to, 88 pages, and 6 large folding engraved plates of apparatus by Le Blanc. Original blue sugarpaper wrappers, uncut and largely unopened. £650 continued... 16
Item 39, Geber.
FIRST EDITION. With this work Gay-Lussac made a major contribution to chemical analysis. It contains a detailed description of his precipitation titration method for the quantitative determination of silver, which completely displaced the centuries old method of cupellation. It was printed at the government press and published by the Commission des Monnais et Médailles. Cole 509. Neville I, p. 504: “One of the most important books published by Gay-Lussac.” Darmstaedter, Handbuch, p. 386.
“The First Chemist” With Extensive Annotations 39. GEBER (Jabir ibn Haiyan). In hoc volumine De Alchemia continentur haec. Gebri Arabis…De investigatio[n]e p[er]fectionis metallor[um]. Liber I. Summae perfectionis metallorum, sive perfecti magisterii. Libri II. Quae sequuntur, omnia nunc primu[m] excusa sunt. Eiusdem de inventione veritatis seu perfectionis metallorum. Liber I. De fornacibus construendis. Liber I. Item. Speculu[m] Alchemiae… Rogerii Bachonis [etc. See below.] Omnia collatis exemplaribus, eme[n]datissima, novoq[ue]…picturis necessariis illustrata… Norimbergae [Nuremberg]: apud Joh. Petreium, 1541. 4to, pp. (xx), 373, (2), 1 leaf (errata). With 16 large woodcuts of furnaces in the text (including several repeated), numerous woodcut initials. First and last few leaves soiled, pale dampstain on last 20 leaves, upper corner of first few leaves worn. Eighteenth century panelled sheep, later reback. Signature of Walter Pagel and book label of Bernard Pagel on front pastedown. Extensively annotated in the margins in an early and le gible hand, and with notes on four slips of paper bound in; also some short notes in another early hand. £8500 First Nuremberg edition (probably the sixth chronologically after two printed at Rome and three at Strasbourg) of the first printed book on chemistry, by “the first chemist” (Stillwell). continued... 17
“A valuable alchemical treatise that was originally attributed to the Arab Al-Tarasusi Jabir ibn Haiyan, a chemist known as Geber (fl. 8th–9th century). Recent research has shown that this work was written by an anonymous thirteenth- or fourteenth-century author (pseudo Geber) who possessed more advanced chemical knowledge… This Latin treatise exerted an epochal influence upon alchemists of the later Middle Ages and Renaissance… Geber’s works are very important as they contain the main chemical knowledge of medieval Christendom” (Neville, pp. 508 and 507) The author gives detailed descriptions of apparatus, methods, and the properties of individual metals. The first edition (Rome, 1485) is the earliest printed chemical book cited by Stillwell, who comments: “An important treatise on alchemical theory and practice… Jabir himself may be accredited as the first chemist to whom the term may properly be applied.” This edition is important for being the first to contain the two works ascribed to Geber on metallurgy and the construction of furnaces, and the following six additional works: Roger Bacon, Speculum alchemiae; Richard the Englishman (of Wendover), Correctorium alchemiae; the anonymous Rosarius minor, de alchemia; Khalid ibn Yazid, Liber secretorum alchemiae; Hermes Trismegistus, Tabula Smaragdina de alchemia; and Hortulanus, Tabulam Smaragdinam hermetis commentarius, all of which are printed here probably for the first time. Parkinson, Breakthroughs, c.1310. Darmstaedter 750. Duveen, p. 238 (Rome c.1513–1520, Strasbourg 1531, and editions later than the present one). Ferguson I, p. 18. Neville pp. 509 (Strasbourg, 1531) and 507 (Nuremberg, 1545).
40. GRAAF, Regnier de. De Succo Pancreatico: Or, a physical and anatomical treatise of the nature and office of the Pancreatick Juice; shewing its generation in the body, what diseases arise by its vitiation; from whence in particular, by plain and familiar examples, is accurately demonstrated, the causes and cures of agues, or intermitting feavers, hitherto so difficult and uncertain: with sundry other things worthy of note. Written by D. Reg. de Graaf, physician of Delph, and translated by Christopher Pack, Med. Lond. London: Printed for N. Brock… 1676. 8vo, 12 leaves, pp. 151, (17), and 3 folding engraved plates. Lower portion (2.5 cm) of plate 1 torn away and replaced in facsimile. Title within double ruled border with publisher’s woodcut device. Fore-edges of two plates dust-soiled and a little ragged, paper slightly browned in the margins, tear in upper margin of several leaves of the index touching the text but without loss. Good modern panelled calf antique. Bookplate of H.F. Norman. £1600 FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH. See G&M 974 (the first, exceedingly rare, edition of 1664). The first canalisation of the pancreatic duct. De Graaf was one of the earliest investigators of the pancreatic secretion. He collected the pancreatic juice of dogs by means of introducing a temporary cannula, made from the quill of a duck, into the pancreatic duct of a living dog. He studied the liquid so obtained, commenting on the small quantity secreted and on its apparent properties. He discusses the uses of this juice in digestion. He compared it with human pancreatic juice and found the two to have identical properties. “De Graaf ’s account of his unsuccessful attempts to collect pancreatic juice, followed by his eventual success, is one of the most interesting passages in the history of the experimental method…” (Foster). Wing G1463. Foster, Lectures on the history of physiology, pp. 153–157, and Selected Readings in the History of Physiology, pp. 166–168. Norman catalogue 924 (this copy). This was the only English edition, and while not as difficult to find as the first edition, it is of considerable rarity.
41. GREN, Friedrich Albrecht Carl. Principles of Modern Chemistry, systematically arranged. Translated from the German; with notes and additions, concerning later discoveries, by the translator, and some necessary tables. London: Printed for T. Cadell, Jun. & W. Davies… 1800. 2 volumes, 8vo, 1 leaf, pp. (xvii), (i), 448, 1 leaf, 6 engraved plates with 6 leaves of explanatory text; 1 leaf, pp. iv, 1 leaf (errata), pp. 498, 1 leaf (blank), 1 double-page engraved plate of chemical symbols. continued... 18
Contemporary tree calf, flat spines gilt with red and green morocco labels. Some minor foxing, short crack at top of one joint, but a very nice set. Signature of George Ure at top of each title-page. £850 FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH of Gren’s Grundriss der Chemie, with additions and notes by the translator, Dr. Gruber, an Austrian resident in London. “Although the author had his own eclectic theory of chemistry he has followed the antiphlogistic system in this work” (Cole). The text also describes glass- and ceramic-making techniques, dyeing, brewing, etc. Gren (1760–1798), founder of the Journal der Physik which became the Annalen der Physik and Germany’s most exciting scientific journal, slowly adopted Lavoisier’s theories, which helped to prepare the way for the ultimate acceptance of his ideas in Germany. Cole 554. Duveen p. 268. Neville I, p. 548. Partington III, pp. 575–577.
42.
GUEST, Richard. A Compendious History of the Cotton-Manufacture; with a disproval of the claim of Sir Richard Arkwright to the invention of its ingenious machinery. Manchester: Printed by Joseph Pratt, Chapel Walks, and sold by E. Thomson… 1823. Large 4to, 2 leaves, pp. (3)–70, (3), and 12 plates (3 lithographed and 9 engraved). Original red-brown boards, rebacked to match and corners repaired, uncut. Foxing on the plates, otherwise a fine copy. £800 FIRST EDITION of the earliest history of the cotton industry. Although it is heavily biased in favour of the claims of Kaye and Highs as the true inventors of Arkwright’s cotton machinery, the book is nevertheless a key source of information on both Arkwright and other contemporary figures, on the machinery itself, and on the social changes wrought by the huge growth in the industry brought about by mechanisation. The lithographed plates show the old methods of weaving, and the engraved plates are a fine series of detailed views of the new machinery.
Chlorine as a Disinfectant 43. GUYTON DE MORVEAU, Louis Bernard. Traité des Moyens de Désinfecter l’Air, de prévenir la contagion, et d’en arrêter les progrès. A Paris: Chez Bernard… An IX. — 1801. 8vo, pp. xxxii, 304, + 8 pages of Bernard’s advertisements at the end. Contemporary marbled boards, sheep spine ruled in gilt, red morocco label. Half-title. Very faint dampstain on last few leaves, a fine copy. £450 FIRST EDITION. Guyton did important pioneering research on the disinfection of air, having been consulted about the problem of putrid emanations from corpses in the crypt of a church in Dijon. Believing that the decaying flesh gave off both ammonia and the disease-carrying particles, he first used hydrochloric acid fumes, while in England Sir James Carmichael Smyth independently used nitric acid fumes. Guyton subsequently made the investigations described in this book, and then used chlorine, which he found to be an effective disinfectant. A simple apparatus for producing chlorine from common salt was also described in this book, which was translated into five languages. For this service to humanity he was admitted to the Legion of Honour in 1805, while in England Smyth was awarded a grant of £5000. DSB V, p. 603. Cole 573. Duveen p. 276. Neville I, pp. 562–563. The collation of this copy agrees with Duveen, and has 8 pages of advertisements at the end; some copies (e.g. Neville) have 306 pages, the extra leaf being a singleton, V1, advertising Guyton’s books, while others have neither the single leaf nor the 8 pages.
44. HALES, Rev. Stephen. Statical Essays: containing vegetable staticks; or, an account of some statical experiments on the sap in vegetables. Being an essay towards a natural history of vegetation… Also, a specimen of an attempt to analyse the air… The second edition, with amendments. London: Printed for W. Innys…T. Woodward… continued... 19
and J. Peele, 1731. [And:] Statical Essays: containing Haemastaticks; or, an account of some hydraulick and hydrostatical experiments made on the blood and blood-vessels of animals. Also an account of the stone in the kidneys and bladder… London: Printed for W. Innys…R. Manby…and T. Woodward, 1733. 2 volumes, 8vo, pp. (vi), viii, (iv), 376, 19 engraved plates; xxii, (xxvi), 361, (23). Contemporary panelled calf, nicely rebacked, endpapers replaced. Paper in the first volume browned (as often), otherwise a nice set. Armorial bookplate in each volume of A.H.F. Cameron, and Charles Cameron. £3000 SECOND EDITION OF VOLUME ONE, FIRST EDITION OF VOLUME TWO, as issued. Printing and the Mind of Man 189(a) and (b), “first complete edition”. Horblit 45a–b. In the Vegetable Staticks, Hales studied the movement of sap in plants, and discovered what is now known as root pressure. He studied the amounts of water that plants used, the influence of light on them, and discovered that they require carbon dioxide from the air (PMM). “His work was so great an advance that it stands alone in its time, and deserves close attention” (Morton, History of Botanical Science, pp. 246–254). He also recounts his experiments with a closed-circuit rebreathing apparatus, and tried with various filters to remove the “noxious vapours” (i.e. carbon dioxide) from the air. “He was a sanitary pioneer, being the first to introduce ventilation,…[and gave] the first clear enunciation of the existence of gases in a free and in a combined condition” (Foster, Lectures on the history of physiology, pp. 231–232). See Dibner 26. In the Haemastaticks, Hales recorded his studies on blood pressure, by which he became one of the founders of modern experimental physiology, and the inventor of the manometer. “His work is the greatest single contribution to our knowledge of the vascular system after Harvey, and led to the development of the blood-pressure measuring instruments now in universal use” (G&M). G&M 765. Willius & Keys, Cardiac Classics, pp. 127–155.
45. [HARDY, William.] The Miner’s Guide or Complete Miner; containing the articles and customs of the High Peak and Wapentake of Wirksworth, Derbyshire. Selected, arranged and printed (verbatim), from the works of Hardy and Houghton. To which is added; a new article and a copy of the inquisition taken at Ashburn, Derbyshire, in the 16th year of the reign of King Edward 1st… Wirksworth: Printed and published by J. Cotes, and sold by Mess. B. Crosby and Co…London. 1810. 8vo, pp. xix, 150, engraved frontispiece and 1 engraved plate. Preliminaries printed on light blue paper. Twentieth century half calf. £450 A new edition of Hardy’s The Miner’s Guide, first printed at Sheffield in 1748 with a second edition printed at Birmingham in 1762. It includes a chapter on the invention of the compass, and on dialling. Hardy evidently having died, his name was omitted from the title-page of this edition, which was published in the Derbyshire town of Wirksworth, the centre of the lead mining district. In the eighteenth century there were thousands of mines in the area, all worked individually. See the Hoover catalogue 387 for the first edition.
Longitude 46. [HARRISON, John, and Nevil MASKELYNE.] The Principles of Mr. Harrison’s Timekeeper, with plates of the same. Published by order of the Commissioners of Longitude. London: Printed by W. Richardson and S. Clark; and sold by John Nourse, and Mess. Mount and Page. 1767. 4to, pp. xvii, (i) blank, 19–31, and 10 folding engraved plates. Page ix is misnumbered vii. Half-title slightly dust-soiled, small restoration to lower corner of first 4 leaves, faint stain to lower corner of plates. Good modern half calf antique. Small stamp of the Clockmakers Company on the verso of the title, the last page and back of the last plate. £36,000 continued... 20
FIRST EDITION, issue with the plates on thick paper, of the technical report on Harrison’s chronometer, the first time-keeper to be both sufficiently accurate for the purpose of navigation and able work on a ship. It brought about a revolution in navigation, as navigators were for the first time able to calculate, as opposed to estimate, their longitude. This was the first time that a navigator was able to establish his position anywhere at sea, and remained the only method until the introduction of the Global Positioning System in 1994. The Commissioners of Longitude demanded a demonstration and a full account of the mechanism of the chronometer H4, which were written respectively by Maskelyne and Harrison himself and published as the present work. The plates are extremely accurate representations of the mechanism. The story of longitude is a long and rather tortuous one, beginning with the loss of a squadron of English warships on the Isles of Scilly in 1704, which resulted in a premium being offered by the Board of Longitude in 1714 for a solution to the problem of how to find longitude at sea. Through his extraordinary skill as a clockmaker Harrison was awarded the premium, but not until 1773, only three years before his death. Parkinson, Breakthroughs, 1765; and Grolier One Hundred (Science), 42b. Norman catalogue 995. See Printing and the Mind of Man 208. Andrewes (ed.), The quest for longitude, p. 251, etc.
47. [HARRISON, John, and Nevil MASKELYNE.] The Principles of Mr. Harrison’s Timekeeper, with plates of the same, published by order of the Commissioners of Longitude. [French title:] Principes de la Montre de Mr. Harrison, avec les planches relatives a la même montre, imprimés à Londres en 1767 par ordre de Mrs. les Commissaires des Longitudes. A Avignon: Chez la veuve Girard & François Segeuin [&] Jean Aubert… 1767. 4to, pp. (v), (1), 3–19 (English text); iv, 39 (French text), and 7 folding engraved plates. There are two title-pages, English and French, and the English text is interleaved with the French up to p. 19. Good modern quarter calf antique, uncut. Light browning to 4 leaves, some other very slight browning and a few small marks and creases, small paper repairs to fore-edge of last plate. £8500 FIRST EDITION IN FRENCH of the previous item, published in the same year. The English text was immediately translated into French by the Jesuit mathematician and hydrographer Esprit Pezenas and published as the present work. The first half contains Pezenas’s French translation, with the English text on alternate pages, and the latter half contains Pezenas’s description of the trials of Harrison’s chronometer and a critical summary of Maskelyne’s report on the going of the watch. See Printing and the Mind of Man 208; Parkinson, Breakthroughs, 1765; and Grolier One Hundred (Science), 42b. Norman catalogue 996. Andrewes (ed.), The quest for longitude, p. 251, etc.
48. [HARRISON, John, and Nevil MASKELYNE.] Historien af Mr. Harrisons forsög til Længdens Opfindelse formedelst et uhr eller en tidmaaler, samt hvad der ved dets pröving og bedömmelse i England i vore tider er foregaaer, saavelsom og en oversætttelse af Principerne tilligemed Tegningerne af samme Tidmaaler, udgivne i aaret 1767. ester ordre af Commissarierne for Længden. Kiöbenhavn: Trykt hos Nicolaus Möller… 1768. 4to, 66 pages, 9 engraved plates (7 folding) with 9 leaves of explanation, 1 leaf (instructions to the binder). Woodcut head- and tailpieces. Contemporary half sheep and speckled boards (foot of spine and lower corners a little worn, short crack at foot of lower joint), morocco label and old paper label on spine. A clean and fresh copy. Old stamp “A. St. B.” in lower corner of title. £2500 FIRST EDITION IN DANISH of item 46. See Printing and the Mind of Man 208; Parkinson, Breakthroughs, 1765; Grolier One Hundred (Science), 42b; and Norman catalogue 995. Andrewes (ed.), The quest for longitude, p. 251, etc. This and the French edition (see the previous item) seem to be the only contemporary translations. This edition is particularly rare (3 copies are recorded in OCLC, in the national libraries of Denmark, Sweden and France).
21
Early Scottish Agriculture Early Irish Industry 49. [HOPE, Sir Thomas.] A Treatise concerning the Manner of Fallowing of Ground, Raising of Grass-Seeds, and Training of Lint and Hemp, for the increase and improvement of linnen-manufactories in Scotland. Publishe’d for the benefit of the farmers in that kingdom, by the Honourable Society for Improving in the Knowledge of Agriculture. Edinburgh: Printed by Robert Fleming and Company, 1724. 8vo, pp. 118, (8), 127–173, (3) blank, and 7 folding engraved plates. Woodcut head- and tailpieces and initial. Contemporary panelled calf, red morocco label on spine. Faint dampstain in 10 leaves, but a nice copy. £1600 FIRST EDITION. The first book published by the Society of Improvers in the Knowledge of Agriculture in Scotland, which was the first agricultural society in Europe, formed in June 1723. This work is one of the earliest works on flax and hemp published in Scotland. It has been variously attributed to Richard Bradley and William Macintosh, but according to the ODNB it was largely the work of Hope, the first president of the society, aided by Robert Maxwell of Arkland, the secretary. The text incorporates (Chapters 5–8) the second edition of Louis Crommelin’s An essay towards the improving of the hempen and flaxen manufactures in the kingdom of Ireland (Dublin, 1705), which was one of the earliest, perhaps the first, Irish books on Irish industry. These four chapters are on hemp, spinning, linen, and bleaching, and contain many details of historical and scientific interest. The plates show details of various types of loom. Crommelin is described as ‘the founder of the linen-manufactory in Ireland, about the year 1700’. He was requested by the king to be director of the linen manufacture at Lisburn, where he brought in skilled Irish, French and Dutch workers, and ordered 1000 weaving looms. Fussell, The old English farming books, pp. 109–110, discussing the authorship. McDonald, Agricultural writers, p. 208. Henrey, British botanical and horticultural literature before 1800, II, pp. 603–605.
50. [HOUPREGHT, John Frederick.] Aurifontina Chymica: or, a collection of fourteen small treatises concerning the first matter of philosophers, for the discovery of their (hitherto so much concealed) mercury. Which many have studiously endeavoured to hide, but these to make manifest, for the benefit of mankind in general. London: Printed for William Cooper… 1680. 24mo (in 12s), pp. (xxii), 272, (4). Without the first leaf (blank). Title within double ruled border. Foreedge of title very carefully repaired with small loss to part of the outer ruled border, repair to the upper corner of the last leaf with loss of about 5 letters, some very minor pale stains. Early twentieth century brown crushed morocco by Ramage, spine with gilt centres, gilt fillet and corner-pieces on sides, inner gilt dentelles, gilt edges, a nice copy. Blindstamp of A.J.V. Radford on the front endpaper. £2800 SOLE EDITION of this collection of alchemical works. It includes, among others, A treatise of mercury and the philosopher’s stone by George Ripley [1415?–1490], one of the most important of English alchemists (pp. 69–92), Nicolas Flammell’s Summary of philosophy (pp. 145–161), Clavicula, or a little key of Raymond Lullie Majoricane…in which all that is required in the work of alchemy is plainly declared (pp. 163–179), and The Answer of Bernardus Trevisanus, to the Epistle of Thomas of Bononia (pp. 187–270). The dedication is signed by Houpreght, who was also the translator of the first work, but Ferguson suggests that “this curious and very rare little volume was probably compiled and edited by William Cooper, a well-known vendor of alchemical books, and the author of the first catalogue of such books in England [1673–1675].” The last four pages contain a catalogue of alchemical works sold by William Cooper. Gardner, Bibliotheca Rosicruciana, 322: “A most charming collection of valuable alchemical treatises… One piece in particular…contains a relation of such marvellous things that I have hardly heard their equal elsewhere…”, an opinion echoed by Duveen. continued... 22
Wing H2941. Duveen p. 34. Ferguson I, pp. 57–58, listing the 14 treatises in the volume. Although quite widely held in libraries, this collection very rarely appears in commerce, with only one copy being recorded at auction in the last thirty years.
Item 49, Hope.
51. HUNTER, John. Hunterian Reminiscences; being the substance of a course of lectures on the principles and practice of surgery, delivered by the late Mr. John Hunter, in the year 1785; taken in short-hand, and afterwards fairly transcribed, by the late Mr. James Parkinson… Edited by his son, J.W.K. Parkinson, by whom are appended illustrative notes. London: Sherwood, Gilbert, and Piper… 1833. 4to, pp. xii, 176. Half-title, unobtrusive library stamp on the title. Good modern half diced calf antique, gilt raised bands on spine. £550 continued... 23
FIRST EDITION. “The Editor is very far from considering these ‘Reminiscences’ as constituting a system of surgery; they must rather be regarded as consisting of fragments (and those often very unconnected), but containing most of Mr. Hunter’s original pathological doctrines” (the preface). The transcriber was James Parkinson, after whom Parkinson’s disease was named. The notes from which Hunter lectured were destroyed. LeFanu, John Hunter, a list of his books, p. 21.
52. INGENHOUSZ, Jan. Expériences sur les Végétaux, spécialement sur la propriété qu’ils possèdent à un haut degré, soit d’améliorer l’air quand ils sont au soleil, soit de la corrompre la nuit, ou lorsqu’ils sont à l’ombre; auxquelles on a joint une méthode nouvelle de juger du degré de salubrité de l’atmosphère. Traduit de l’anglois, par l’auteur. A Paris: Chez P. Fr. Didot le jeune… 1780. 8vo, pp. lxviii, 333, (2), 1 folding engraved plate with figures from drawings by the author. Two woodcut headpieces. Nineteenth century green marbled boards and cloth spine. A few insignificant stains in the fore-edge margin, binding slightly rubbed, but a good copy. £450 FIRST EDITION IN FRENCH. 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. See G&M 103 (biology) and 145.52 (ecology); Grolier One Hundred (Science), 55; and Dibner, Heralds of science, 29. Duveen p. 305. Partington, III, pp. 278 et seq. Sachs, History of botany, pp. 494–495. The first edition appeared in English the previous year, and was translated into French by the author himself.
53. KEATE, Thomas. Cases of Hydrocele, with observations on a peculiar method of treating that disease. To which is subjoined, a singular case of hernia vesicæ urinariæ, complicated with the hydrocele; and two cases of hernia incarcerata. London: Printed for J. Walter, Charing-Cross. 1788. Small 8vo, pp. (iv), 60, folding stipple-engraved plate by Frederick Birnie. Original drab boards, very worn, later cloth spine. Blind stamp in upper corner of title, a few small marks in the text. £250 FIRST EDITION of Keate’s only surgical publication, and rare. Apart from a German translation there were no other editions. “He succeeded Gunning in 1798 as surgeon-general to the army, and the next year was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. He also became inspector of the National Cow-Pox Establishment. Keate was an examiner at the Royal College of Surgeons from 1800, and master in 1802, 1809, and 1818. He was an excellent surgeon, and was the first to tie the subclavian artery for aneurysm” (ODNB).
54. [KINGLAKE, Alexander William.] Eothen, or traces of travel brought home from the East. London: John Ollivier… 1844. 8vo, 1 leaf (half-title), pp. xi, 418, folding hand-coloured lithographed frontispiece and 1 coloured plate. Nineteenth century vellum over boards, spine lettered in gilt, inner gilt dentelles, marbled endpapers, t.e.g. Minor foxing on the first few leaves and (more so) on the endpapers, upper cover slightly faded at top, but a very good copy in a fine binding. Arms of the Prince of Wales in gilt on the upper cover, bookplates of William Orme Foster and Norman Travis. £800 continued... 24
FIRST EDITION. “In August 1834, Kinglake set out on an eighteen-month odyssey through Europe and the Ottoman empire. After encountering plague in Constantinople, he travelled to Smyrna, Cyprus, Beirut, the Holy Land, and Jerusalem, before crossing the Sinai Desert to Cairo. Following three weeks in Egypt, he returned north through Damascus and Asia Minor then via Athens, Corfu, Rome, and Turin to London. On 5 May 1837, Kinglake was called to the bar but… continued to travel, visiting Switzerland in 1843, and the following year Eothen, his account of the 1834–5 Turkish adventures, was published and included two of his own watercolours” (ODNB).
55. KINGLAKE, Robert. A Dissertation on Gout; exhibiting a new view of the origin nature, cause, cure, and prevention, of that afflicting disease; illustrated and confirmed by a variety of original and communicated cases. London: Printed for John Murray... 1804. 8vo, pp. xx, 348, (12) Murray’s adverts. Contemporary speckled calf, red morocco label on spine. Spine slightly rubbed, but a nice copy. PRESENTATION COPY, inscribed on a binder’s leaf facing the title “The Right Honourable Lord Somerville, from the Author”; and in another hand “Presented by him to the Baron de Roth, 1805.” £295 FIRST EDITION. Kinglake attracted considerable attention by his writings on gout, in which he advocated the cooling treatment. His first papers on the subject appeared in 1801 and 1803, but this was his first full-length book.
56.
LAVOISIER, Antoine Laurent. Elements of Chemistry, in a New Systematic Order, containing All the Modern Discoveries… Translated from the French, by Robert Kerr… Fourth Edition, with Notes, Tables, and considerable Additions. Edinburgh: W. Creech, 1799. 8vo, pp. (iii)-xlvii, (49)–592, 2 folding printed tables and 13 folding engraved plates (several of the plates are slightly soiled). Lacking the half-title. Contemporary calf (joints & ends of spine carefully repaired), red morocco lettering piece on spine, very good copy. £800 Fourth edition of the Kerr translation. It was upon this edition that the American editions of 1799 and 1801 were based. “One of the great milestones in the history of chemical literature. By common consent modern chemistry begins with this work, ‘which finally freed the science from its phlogiston chains and formed the starting point of its modern progress. It may be said to have done almost as much for chemistry as Newton’s Principia did for physics’ (Zeitlinger). Lavoisier used the balance to demonstrate the weight of matter at every chemical change, defined the terms element and compound, explained combustion and the rusting of metals as a chemical combination with oxygen, and through his concept of the conservation of matter developed methods of chemical analysis. The book contains the first list of twenty-three chemical elements and their compounds” (Neville, II, p. 21). Cole 785. Duveen & Klickstein 168. Neville, II, p. 25.
57. LAVOISIER, Antoine Laurent. Édition. Paris: Deterville, 1801.
Opuscules Physiques et Chymiques… Seconde
2 parts in 1 volume, 8vo, pp. xxx, (ii), 443, 3 folding engraved plates. Contemporary half sheep and speckled boards, flat spine gilt, blue morocco lettering piece on spine. A very fine copy. £800 Second edition of this “pioneer work in which [Lavoisier] first gives a historical survey of previous workers’ efforts and then describes his own experiments on gases and the conclusions to be derived from them” (Duveen & Klickstein, p. 94). “The genuine second edition in which Deterville has reprinted the entire book with the errata corrected in the text and with the plates re-engraved by Tardieu senior. Another so-called seconde edition published in 1801 is merely a reissue of the first edition, with the replacement of the dedication leaf to Trudaine de Montigny by a half-title and a new title-page, and with the continued... 25
same plates as the 1774 issue. The present edition is the first new printing of the Opuscules since Lavoisier’s death in 1794” (Neville). Cole 769. Duveen & Klickstein 123. Neville, II, p. 19: “It exerted a tremendous influence on Continental chemists and set the stage for Lavoisier’s overthrow of the phlogiston theory.”
58. LAWRENCE, William. John Churchill... 1833.
A Treatise on the Diseases of the Eye. London: Printed for
8vo, pp. xv, 730, + 2 leaves of adverts dated October 1834 inserted at the beginning and 1 leaf at the end. Half-title. Original cloth-backed boards, one lower corner worn, uncut and largely unopened, bookplate. One or two very minor marks, but a fine copy. £800 FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH (see below). G&M 5849, citing this edition: “This comprehensive work marks an epoch in ophthalmic surgery. It is based on lectures delivered by Lawrence at the London Ophthalmic Infirmary. He was surgeon to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital; he succeeded Abernethy as lecturer on surgery and did much to advance the surgery of the eye.” The French edition is the true first. It was prepared and translated from Lawrence’s notes by Charles Billard, and appeared in 1830, three years before this edition. Albert, Norton & Hurtes 1336: “…a milestone in ophthalmic surgery.” This edition not in the Becker catalogue, which has American editions only.
59. LE DRAN, [Henri François]. The Operations in Surgery... Translated by Mr. Gataker, Surgeon. With remarks, plates of the operations, and a sett of instruments, by Mr. Cheselden. The fourth edition. London: Printed for Hawes, Clarke and Collins [and four others]. 1768. 8vo, pp. (viii), 472, and 22 engraved plates. Half-title. Contemporary calf, red morocco label on spine, red sprinkled edges. A few gatherings very slightly browned, two corners bumped, expert repair to head of spine, but a very good, clean copy. £480 A translation by Thomas Gataker of Le Dran’s Traité des Opérations de Chirurgie, but with the addition of 20 pages of “Observations” by William Cheselden, and 21 rather fine plates drawn by him. See the Zeis Index of Plastic Surgery, 106, for, pp. 339–345, by Cheselden. At the end is a 5-page “Essay towards a new Pharmacopoeia Chirurgica”, and an interesting “Advertisement” on the improvements in the practice of surgeons occasioned by the recent Act of Parliament separating the surgeons from the barbers.
Pioneering Neurophysiology 60. LEGALLOIS, [Julien Jean César]. Expériences sur le Principe de la Vie, notamment sur celui des mouvemens du coeur, et sur le siège de ce principe... A Paris: Chez D’Hautel... 1812. 8vo, 4 leaves, pp. xxiv, 364, 1 folding engraved plate. Half-title, errata leaf bound after the dedication. Contemporary calf-backed boards, rebacked, endpapers replaced. Slight foxing and a pale dampstain in the upper corner of the first few gatherings of text, otherwise a very good copy. £900 FIRST EDITION. G&M 928 and 1389.2. A pioneer work in neurophysiology. Legallois was the first of the great French physiologists who based their conclusions on animal experiments. He localised the respiratory centre in the medulla oblongata and not in the spinal cord as had previously been believed. This was the first time that an area of brain substance within a major subdivision of the brain had been accurately defined by experiment to have a specific function, and it stimulated Flourens and later workers to conduct their own experiments. Legallois studied the effects of bilateral section of the vagus nerve, showing that it can produce bronchopneumonia. He was a vigorous supporter of the neurogenic theory of the heartbeat. Legallois was the first to draw attention to variations according to age in the respiratory reactions to the excitation of the nervous system of animals of the same species. He successfully decapitated mammals and maintained continued... 26
the circulation by injecting blood either naturally or artificially oxygenated. This experiment, illustrated on the plate, had far-reaching conclusions for practical medicine, and went against the common practice of therapy by bleeding. With this copy is bound Thomas’s Mémoires pour servir a l’histoire naturelle des Sangsues (Paris, 1806), with 3 plates. Finger, Origins of neuroscience, p. 27. McHenry 190. Norman catalogue 1324.
Item 60, Legallois.
61. LIND, James. A Treatise on the Scurvy. In three parts. . Containing an inquiry into the nature, causes, and cure, of that disease. Together with a critical and chronological view of what has been published on the subject. The second edition corrected, with additions and improvements. London: Printed for A. Millar… 1757. 8vo, pp. xvi, (iii), (i) blank, 476. Good modern half calf antique. Faint library stamp on the title, paper very slightly browned. £2800 Second edition of this great classic of naval medicine. “Lind, founder of naval hygiene in England, wrote a classic treatise on scurvy in which he described many important experiments he made on the disease. These experiments have been called ‘the first deliberately planned controlled therapeutic trial ever undertaken’. Lind showed that in preserved form citrus juices could be carried for long periods on board ship, and that, if administered properly, they would prevent the disease. The application of this knowledge by naval surgeons who followed Lind led to the eventual elimination of the disease from the British navy” (G&M 3713, note to the first edition of 1753). In this second edition, Lind made a number of additions, and used it to try to elicit replies from naval physicians abroad who had not responded to his requests for information.
27
Item 62, The wonderful engraved headpiece in Macquer’s dictionary of chemistry.
The Best Edition 62. MACQUER, [Pierre Joseph]. Dictionnaire de Chymie, contenant la théorie et la pratique de cette science, son application à la physique, à l’histoire naturelle, à la médecine, & aux arts dépendans de la chymie. Seconde édition, revue et considérablement augmentée. A Paris: De l’imprimerie de Monsieur. 1778. 2 volumes, 4to, pp. lii, 687; 2 leaves, pp. 856. With the half-titles, engraved vignette on the titles, woodcut headpiece in vol. 1, and a different large engraved headpiece on each first page of text. Contemporary mottled calf, spines gilt in compartments with red and green morocco labels, triple gilt fillet on sides, marbled endpapers. Tiny wormhole at foot of one spine, tips of two corners slightly worn, but a fine copy. Small armorial bookplate of front pastedowns. £900 The de luxe quarto setting of the revised and augmented second edition (the only French edition of Macquer’s dictionary of chemistry to be published in quarto format). ”An important addition is the…article on gas, a topic that was almost entirely new and had not been mentioned in the first edition… While the number of articles remains almost the same, the work is nearly twice as long owing to the inclusion of an up-to-date account of chemistry and much new material…” (Neville). Macquer also added a large index to this edition. Cole 871, remarking that the engraved headpieces are worthy of note. DSB, VIII, pp. 618–624. Neville p. 114. See Parkinson, Breakthroughs, 1766. The printer of this setting, Didot, was the same as for the earlier octavo setting, but most of the errors have been corrected. A lovely copy.
An Historical Source of the First Importance 63. MADHOUSES. Report [–Fourth Report] from the Committee on Madhouses in England. [London:] Ordered, by the House of Commons, to be Printed, 11 July 1815. Folio, pp. 7, (1), 214, + subtitles to each of the four Reports, and 8 engraved plates (6 double-page) of designs for the West Riding, Bethlem, and other asylums. Recently bound in blue cloth, red morocco label on spine, fine copy. £1500 continued... 28
FIRST EDITION of the four Reports for 1815, one of the most important documents in the history of psychiatry, bringing the distressing circumstances of the insane in asylums to public attention. There were four Reports in 1815 and a further three in 1816. The actual Report comprises the first 7 pages; the four Reports themselves consist of the Minutes of Evidence. The Reports for 1815 were the most significant, as those for 1816 merely confirmed their findings and took further evidence. “Together they were a survey of the conditions and treatment of the insane wherever they were confined… A revelation to all but a few when they appeared, they are today a historical source of the first importance containing information nowhere else to be found about how the insane actually fared as opposed to what was written about insanity in books, a disparity between theory and practice which emerges glaringly. Next to them the two earlier Parliamentary enquiries…appear almost insignificant. In contrast the 1815 [&] 1816. Committees’ Minutes of Evidence is a monumental documentary…with plans of asylums, covering all aspects of asylum life…” (Hunter & Macalpine, pp. 696–703). This is the true first edition of the official government report, and as such extremely hard to find. It was republished in 1815 on the initiative of one of the witnesses, and reprinted by order of Parliament in 1819.
64. MAGATI, Cesare. De Rara Medicatione Vulnerum seu de vulneribus rarò tractandis, libri duo. In quibus nova traditur methodus, qua felicissimè, ac citius quam alio quovis modo sanantur vulnera... Accessit huic editioni Ioannis Baptistae Magati Tractatus, quo rara vulnerum curatio defenditur contra Sennertum. Venetiis [Venice]: Apud Io. Iacobum Hertz, 1676. 2 parts in 1 volume, folio, pp. (viii), 178, (18); (iv), 172, (14), (2) blank. First title-page printed in red and black, separate title-page to the second part, some fine woodcut ornaments, text printed in double columns. Small (2 cm.) hole in lower margin of title. Eighteenth(?) century paper boards, spine slightly chipped, uncut, fine copy. £900 Second edition of an important surgical treatise, in which Magati pleads for conservative treatment and for the natural processes to be given the chance to heal wounds. Like Paré, Magati believed that gunshot wounds were not in themselves poisonous. “He proposed a rational treatment of wounds, which, in spite of the example set by Paré, were still being treated with unguents of various kinds. He maintained that frequent exposure of wounds to the air was deplorable, and that the introduction of sounds and lint produced dangerous putrefaction. He denied the need for cleaning and anointing and prescribed bandaging with simple linen, to be renewed only after five or six days. These precepts, like those of Paré, were soon forgotten, however, and the old errors were continued into the eighteenth century” (Castiglioni). Most of the second part is on wounds of the nerves and the head. See G&M 2143, the first edition of 1616. Zeis Index 113. Only three editions appeared, but spread over a long period — the third was published in 1733. To the present edition was added a treatise by Magati’s brother against the attacks of Daniel Sennert.
Large Paper Association Copy 65. MANDER, James. The Derbyshire Miners’ Glossary; or, an explanation of the technical terms of the miners, which are used in the King's Field, in the hundred of High Peak, and in the open customary lordships within the same; of those also within the soc or wapentake of Wirksworth or Low Peak, in the same county; together with the mineral laws and customs within those districts… Bakewell: Printed at the Minerva Press, for the author, by Geo. Nall. 1824. 8vo, pp. (xvi), 131, engraved frontispiece. Original printed boards (very carefully rebacked, tips of corners and edges worn), uncut. Boards a little soiled, but a fine and clean large paper copy. Association copy, inscribed to The Right Hon.ble the Earl of Newburgh (a subscriber to a large paper copy) at the top of the title, and with his crowned monogram N on the front free endpaper; Mander was mineral steward to the Earl of Newburgh. Also with the name Hassop on the front board. £650 continued... 29
FIRST EDITION. A glossary of the mining terms used in Derbyshire, followed by the articles or regulations for the mines in question. In the eighteenth century there were thousands of lead mines centred on the nearby town of Worksworth. Not in the Hoover catalogue.
66. [MARAT, Jean-Paul.] A Philosophical Essay on Man. Being an attempt to investigate the principles and laws of the reciprocal influence of the soul and body. London: Printed for F. Newbery…J. Ridley…and T. Payne… 1773. 2 volumes in 1, 8vo, 1 leaf, pp. (ii) “To the Reader” and errata, iv (contents), (iii)–xxx, ii (”Introduction”), (33)–271; 1 leaf, pp. iv (contents), (3)–263, (1), 2 engraved plates bound as frontispieces. Errata corrected in a neat early hand. First title-page a little foxed. Contemporary mottled calf, spine gilt in compartments, two red morocco labels (one a replacement, joints and ends of spine neatly repaired). Armorial bookplate of John Cator (1728–1806). £4500 FIRST EDITION of Marat’s first substantial book (a greatly expanded version of his Essay on the Human Soul (1772). Highly ambitious but without patronage or qualifications, Marat saw this book as his first ticket into intellectual society. His next was The Chains of Slavery (1774), before moving to Paris in 1776. “In true Cartesian fashion he treats the human body as the machine serving as the organ of the soul. The work is divided into four sections. The first is purely anatomical. The second treats of the human soul…[and] contains a vigorous and detailed polemic with Helvétius, who, as is well known, would derive the passions from the system of physical sensations. It is the task of the third section, which is divided into two parts, to deal respectively with the modifying influence of the bodily machine on the indwelling soul and of the soul upon the physical mechanism. In this section the phenomena of sleep and dreaming are expatiated upon, as illustrating the author’s theses… The fourth section of the book deals with the causes and modus operandi of the influence of body and soul on each other,…through…what he terms the “nervous fluids”, by which he understands a subtle ether or substance, “neither grossly material, like the body, nor purely immaterial, like the soul”, but occupying a position between the two, which is the vivifying power of living nervesubstance, and which is concentrated in its greatest intensity in the brain. The movements of this mysterious fluid combine with the elasticity of the fibres and the physical quality of the various organs affected, upon which moral and physical peculiarities depend” (Ernest Belfort Bax, JeanPaul Marat, The people’s friend). There were two issues in 1773, one without, and one with (as here), Newbery’s name in the imprint. Both are extremely rare on the market.
67. MARCET, Alexander. An Essay on the Chemical History and Medical Treatment of Calculous Disorders. London: Printed for Longman… 1817. 8vo, pp. xvi, 181, 10 leaves, 10 engraved plates (3 hand-coloured), errata slip pasted on p. 181. Halftitle. Some foxing and offsetting on the plates and leaves of explanation, and each plate with an old and fairly faint library stamp. Good modern half calf antique. £450 FIRST EDITION. “The object of this work…is to describe, and illustrate by means of accurate engravings, the characters by which the different calculi may be distinguished…” (the introduction). “Between 1807 and 1820, with William Babington and William Allen, Marcet lectured on chemistry at Guy's Hospital medical school… In 1817 Marcet published his most important and original work, An Essay on the Chemical History and Medical Treatment of Calculous Disorders, which contained much chemical information and some good drawings of renal and urinary calculi. In chemical tests Marcet used very small quantities, a valuable technique which he derived from the work of William Hyde Wollaston; he also used the blowpipe. He was probably the first to remark that the pain caused by a renal calculus is often due to its passage down a ureter, whereas it may grow in the kidney without causing acute suffering. The book was useful to chemical pathologists, but Marcet regretted that no London hospital then kept any regular record of calculus cases. He continued... 30
identified a new type of urinary calculus, consisting of xanthic oxide, and he later investigated alcaptonuria, the condition in which the urine turns black” (ODNB). Marcet (1770–1822) was born in Geneva, Switzerland, the only son of a merchant of Huguenot descent. The last plate shows his chemical apparatus.
68. MASKELYNE, Nevil. An Answer to a pamphlet entitled “A Narrative of Facts,” lately published by Mr. Thomas Mudge, Junior, relating to some Time-Keepers constructed by his father Mr. Thomas Mudge; wherein is given an account of the trial of his first timekeeper, and of three trials of his two other time-keepers, between the years 1774 and 1790… London: Printed for F. Wingrave… 1792. 8vo, 1 leaf, pp. 128, 40. Contemporary half calf, red morocco label on spine (short crack at foot of upper joint). Library stamp in lower corner of title and two other pages and withdrawal stamp on verso, also an unusually handsome library label on the front pastedown, a little spotting on the first two leaves. Presentation copy, inscribed “From the Author” on a binder’s leaf before the title. £1400 SOLE EDITION. Maskelyne, as Astronomer Royal, was given Mudge’s second and third chronometers to test, his first having been found satisfactory by the board of longitude. These watches performed well before and after being in the hands of Maskelyne, who, it was felt, had not given them a fair trial. Mudge’s case was strongly urged in a pamphlet issued by his elder son, entitled A narrative of facts relating to some timekeepers constructed by Mr. T. Mudge for the discovery of the longitude at sea, together with observations upon the conduct of the astronomer royal respecting them (1792). Maskelyne retorted in the present work, and the controversy closed with the younger Mudge’s Reply to the answer (1792). John Harrison, who is referred to many times in this book, had previously entertained similar grievances against Maskelyne and the board of longitude, believing that the astronomer royal favoured a scheme of his own for finding longitude. Baillie, Clocks and watches, 1792. Clockmakers’ Library 568.
The Crimean Débâcle 69. [McNEILL, Sir John and Colonel Alexander Murray TULLOCH.] Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Supplies of the British Army in the Crimea, with the evidence annexed. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty. London: Printed by Harrison and Sons. [1856.] [Bound with:] Appendix to the Report… London: Printed by Harrison and Sons. [1856.] Folio, 1 leaf, pp. ii, 51; viii, 432; 1 leaf, pp. iv, 1 leaf, pp. 196, including folding letterpress tables on paginated sheets. Paper slightly browned. Modern red buckram. £240 FIRST EDITION. “At the beginning of 1855, when the Crimean disasters had roused public indignation, [Sir John] McNeill and Colonel Alexander Murray Tulloch, an officer of great administrative experience at the War Office, were sent to the Crimea with instructions to report on the whole arrangements and management of the commissariat department and the method of keeping accounts, and to the causes of the delays in unloading and distributing clothing and other stores sent to Balaklava. The commissioners started at once for the seat of war… The McNeill– Tulloch inquiry was the most effective of the various inquisitions into the Crimean débâcle. It sharply criticized Lord Raglan’s personal staff in the Crimea and Commissary-General Filder, and it led to many recriminations as officers sought to clear their names when the report was published in 1856 (‘Accounts and papers’, Parl. papers, 1856, 20). A board of general officers was convened to clear the army, but despite its protestations the McNeill–Tulloch report led to professional reform of the commissariat by the royal warrant of October 1858. Very unusually, the Commons, irritated by executive obfuscation, passed a resolution in 1857 calling for special honours and McNeill soon became a privy councillor and Tulloch a KCB” (ODNB).
31
The Best Edition 70. MOIVRE, Abraham de. The Doctrine of Chances: or, a method of calculating the probability of events in play. The third edition, fuller, clearer, and more correct than the former. London: Printed for A. Millar… 1756. Large 4to, pp. (iv), xi, (i), 348. Engraved portrait medal by James Dassier on the title-page, engraved head- and tailpiece and initial (the first signed J. Mylne). Contemporary tree calf, flat spine gilt with red and green morocco labels (joints very neatly repaired), gilt twist border on sides, marbled endpapers. A few small marks on the binding, but a fine, clean and very large copy. Provenance: crowned rose and portcullis on the upper and lower covers respectively, also on the two green labels on the spine; Graham Pollard (1903–1976), bookseller and bibliographer, with his purchase invoice loosely inserted. £2500 Third, last and best edition of this classic work which was the foundation of the theory of probability. “His work on the theory of probability surpasses anything done by any other mathematician except P.S. Laplace, and the most important results of de Moivre’s Doctrine reappear in Laplace’s probability theory represented in a new mathematical form and in a new philosophical context, confirming de Moivre's status as a pioneer in this field. His principal contributions are his investigations respecting the Duration of Play, his Theory of Recurring Series, and his extension of the value of Daniel Bernoulli’s theorem by the aid of Stirling’s theorem” (Cajori, A History of Mathematics, p. 230). Apart from containing de Moivre’s normal approximation to the binomial distribution that he had found in 1733, included in the second edition, this third edition contains his Annuities upon Lives (1725), G&M 1690. See Parkinson, Breakthroughs, 1718; Stigler, The History of Statistics, pp. 70–85; Norman catalogue 1529; and Babson 181: “It is the second book devoted entirely to the theory of probability and a classic on the subject.”
71. MONRO, Alexander (secundus). The Structure and Physiology of Fishes Explained, and compared with those of man and other animals. Edinburgh: Printed for Charles Elliot,…and G.G.J. and J. Robinson, London, 1785. Large folio, 128 pages, and 50 engraved plates on 44 sheets (including 12 folding). Short tear in the fold of plate I (very large and folding), plate number of plate XX shaved, clean cut across plate XXIV without loss. Early 19th century green half calf, marbled paper sides rubbed and with some areas of the marbling missing, joints and corners rubbed, small crack at foot of lower joint, but a very good copy. £1450 FIRST EDITION, issue with London in the imprint. “The first important Edinburgh textbook on comparative anatomy, a subject that had been recently introduced to their London students by the Hunters” (DSB). The fine life-sized plates, from actual dissections, are mostly from drawings by Andrew Fyfe or Thomas Donaldson and are printed on thick paper of excellent quality. Cole Library 1660. Taylor, The Monro Collection, M172 (issue without London in the imprint) Casey Wood p. 470: “A treatise of much value.”
Early Photographic Portrait of a Physician 72. MONRO. David Octavius HILL and Robert ADAMSON. Photographic portrait of Alexander Monro (tertius), seated, facing the photographer, his left arm leaning on a table, his right hand holding a book with his forefinger marking the place. Edinburgh: [c. 1845.] Mounted salt paper photograph from a calotype negative, 20.4 x 15 cm., numbered 20 and titled “Professor Monro, Edinburgh” in pencil on the mount. Faded along the lower edge. Provenance: the Wills Collection of Photographica, Birmingham, with a modern label on the mount. £1200 continued... 32
Item 72, Photograph of Alexander Monro tertius.
33
An early, perhaps the first, photographic portrait of a physician. David Hill, a painter, and Robert Adamson, an engineer, went into partnership in 1843 to set up Scotland’s first photographic studio. Together they produced a wide range of photographic portraits, not only of Scottish luminaries but of everyday scenes and ordinary working people, as well as views of Edinburgh and the locality. The partnership ended with Adamson’s untimely death in 1848. The present image could have been taken between 1843 and 1847, but is more likely to have been taken in 1845 or possibly 1846, as in that year Monro resigned as a professor. Alexander Monro tertius (1773–1859) was the third of the line of professors of anatomy at Edinburgh, who between them held the chair for 126 years, and who were largely responsible for making Edinburgh an important seat of medical learning. The medium of photography adds a sense of reality to this portrait; the roughly brushed hair, the firm set of the jaw, the well-worn and rumpled coat, and the hand holding what appears to be an early book (judging by the clasp on the fore-edge) all lend an immediacy not often found in painted portraits. Stevenson, David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson; catalogue of their calotypes taken between 1843 and 1847 (Edinburgh, 1981), p. 93, Monro var. c.
73. MONRO, Donald. An Essay on the Dropsy and its different species. The second edition. London: Printed for D. Wilson, and T. Durham... 1756. 12mo, pp. (xii), 216. Contemporary half vellum. Two tears without loss in upper corner of F5, otherwise a very fine copy. £450 Second edition in English of Monro’s doctoral thesis De hydrope (1753). Monro was “probably the first person to suggest that some cases of dropsy were due to disease of a heart valve” (Comrie, History of Scottish Medicine). The book deals with dropsy of every part of the body, and classifies it as diffuse or encysted. Bedford catalogue 765 (the third edition of 1765, the first book listed under the heading “Early Works on Dropsy and Hydrothorax”).
74. MORGAGNI, Giovanni Battista. Opuscula Miscellanea quorum non pauca nunc primum prodeunt,… Venetiis [Venice]: Ex typographia Remondiniana, 1763. [Bound with:] Epistolae Anatomicae Duae Novas Observationes, et Animadversiones complectens… Venetiis [Venice]: Ex typographia Remondiniana, 1762. 2 works in 1 volume (the first in 3 parts), folio, 1 leaf (sub-title), pp. vi, 120, 75, 84; viii, 96. Sub-title of first work misbound as the first leaf instead of the fourth. First title printed in red and black, separate title to each part with a woodcut vignette, some fine and large woodcut ornaments, text in double columns. Some light foxing, otherwise very good copies. Contemporary vellum over boards, lower corners a little worn, a few small tears in the vellum on the edges. £650 [1.] 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. [2.] Second edition, issue with a woodcut ornament on the title-page (another issue has an engraved vignette).
First English Lectures on Psychiatry 75. MORISON, Alexander. Outlines of Lectures on Mental Diseases. Second edition, with thirteen engravings. London: Longman,... 1826. 8vo, pp. viii, 150, engraved frontispiece and 12 other plates all engraved by W.H. Lizars. Without the half-title. Contemporary half calf, nicely rebacked, corners a little worn. Spotting on the plates, otherwise a very good copy. £1200 continued... 34
Item 75, Morison, portraits of the insane.
35
“Recognising the need for training specialists, Morison in 1823 began an annual course of lectures in London and Edinburgh, for long the only ones yet poorly attended…, and in 1825 published his Outlines of lectures… To Morison therefore belongs the credit of instituting the first formal lectures on psychiatry (he also started the first course of lectures for mental nurses, at Springfield in 1844)” (Hunter & Macalpine). The plates in this book are portraits of the insane, and in the preface Morison, who may have made the drawings himself, implies that they appeared in this edition for the first time. He acknowledges his debt to Esquirol, “for his liberal permission to avail [himself] of his extensive collection of busts and drawings.” Morison’s were some of the earliest portraits of the insane in a psychiatric work, and formed the basis of his Physiognomy of Mental Diseases, which was the first English atlas of the physiognomy of the insane. See Hunter & Macalpine pp. 769–773.
First Description of Anorexia Nervosa 76. MORTON, Richard. Phthisiologia seu exercitationes de Phthisi tribus libris comprehensae. Totumque opus variis historiis illustratum. Londini: Impensis Samuelis Smith,… 1689. 8vo, pp. (xxiv), 411, 1 leaf (errata), 1 leaf (blank). Imprimatur leaf before the title, title within rules. Contemporary unlettered calf (extremities rubbed, two small chips and a wormhole in foot of spine, minor damage to lower edge of rear endpaper), a fine and clean copy. Signature of John Slinger, 1895, on inside of front board and on front endpapers. £1500 FIRST EDITION. G&M 3216. The first important book on pulmonary tuberculosis, and the first description of anorexia nervosa (in the first chapter) with the characteristic triad of loss of appetite, amenorrhoea, and extreme wasting without lassitude. Morton’s book involved “the first application of the principles of pathology to the study of pulmonary tuberculosis. Morton showed that the formation of tubercles is a necessary part of the development of this lung disease, and pointed out that the tubercles often heal spontaneously. He noted the enlargement of the tracheal and bronchial glands in cases of pulmonary tuberculosis” (G&M). Wing M2831. Major, Classic descriptions of disease, pp. 61–63. Norman Catalogue 1555. Osler 3459. Osler, “The ‘Phthisiologia’ of Richard Morton”, in Med. Libr. and Hist. Journal, II pp. 1–7, 1904. Hunter & Macalpine pp. 230–232.
77. MORTON, Richard. Phthisiologia: or, a Treatise of Consumptions. Wherein the difference, nature, causes, signs, and cure of all sorts of consumptions are explained. Containing three books,… Translated from the original. London: Printed for Sam. Smith and Benj. Walford,… 1694. 8vo, pp. (viii), 360, (16), engraved frontispiece portrait by R. White. Title within rules. First and last few leaves a little soiled, pale dampstain in lower margin throughout, tear without loss in S8. Contemporary panelled calf, unlettered, printer’s waste used as pastedown endpapers, two corners a little worn, upper joint cracking at head. Early signature on front free endpaper, small stamp on back of portrait and title. £1400 FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH of the previous item. See G&M 3216 (first edition, in Latin, of 1694). Wing M2830. Major, Classic descriptions of disease, pp. 61–63. Osler, “The ‘Phthisiologia’ of Richard Morton” in Med. Libr. and Hist Journal, II, pp. 1–7, 1904. Hunter & Macalpine pp. 230–232.
78.
MÜLLER, Johannes. De Glandularum Secernentium Structura Penitiori earumque prima formatione in homine atque animalibus. Lipsiae [Leipzig]: Sumtibus Leopoldi Vossii, 1830. Folio, 2 leaves, pp. (3)–131, and 17 engraved plates with numerous figures by J. F. Schröter mostly from drawings by the author and J. Henle. A little foxing (more so on the plates). Modern brown buckram. Very faint library stamp on the title and plates. £1600 continued... 36
FIRST EDITION of the most important and pioneering histological work by the great German physiologist Johannes Müller (1801–1858), in which he described the microscopic anatomy of a large series of secreting glands. In 1830 Müller was appointed full professor at the University of Bonn, a position he held until his death. In the same year “he published his studies of on the emergence and structure of the glands; in the course of this research he employed anatomical preparations, injections, and especially the microscope. The book considerably fostered the advance of embryology and histology. In it he demonstrated that glands are invaginations of the covering membranes that are closed at one end and that blood vessels do not open into the glandular ducts but lie like capillaries in the walls of these ducts” (DSB). G&M 538. Bracegirdle, A History of Microtechnique, p. 313: “Müller had written his book on glands as early as 1830…”
79. NANNONI, Lorenzo. De Similarium Partium Humanum Corpus Constituentium Regeneratione Dissertatio. Additionibus exornata, et Latine reddita a Mauro Sartio Russiensi. Mediolani [Milan:] Ex Typographia Josephi Marelli, 1782. 8vo, 48 pages. Original marbled wrappers, spine defective. A few small marks and slight dustsoiling, but a very good copy. £295 FIRST SEPARATE EDITION, second issue, of Nannoni’s dissertation on the regeneration of nerves, muscles and tendons after excision. Nannoni was the son of the famous surgeon Angelo Nannoni, and a renowned surgeon in his own right. The first issue appeared the year before. Zeis Index 266, citing the edition included in Roemer’s Delectus opusculorum, 1791, and aware of this separate printing only through de Renzi’s Storia de la medicina in Italia (1845). Not in NUC; one copy (NLM) in RLIN.
80. NEUMANN, Caspar. The Chemical Works…abridged and methodized. With large additions, containing the latest discoveries and improvements made in chemistry and the arts depending thereon, by William Lewis… London: Printed for W. Johnston…G. Keith…and E. Dilly… 1759. 4to, pp. (xvi), 586, (38). Contemporary calf, red morocco label on spine. Upper joint cracked at head, minor foxing at the beginning and end, a very good copy. Bookplate of William Downes on front pastedown. £600 FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH, with considerable additions by the translator William Lewis (author of Commercium Philosophico-Technicum, London, 1763–65) from his own experiments. Neumann (1683–1737) contributed significantly to the establishment of Stahlian chemistry in Germany and its dissemination throughout Europe. “He distinguished clearly between pure and applied chemistry and insisted that the chemical approach to nature was vastly superior to the mechanical philosophy” (DSB). “The text is divided into three approximately equal parts covering the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms. One of the best textbooks of the period, it contains (according to Cole) ‘the first exposition of Stahl’s phlogiston theory in English.’ A bibliography of Neumann’s publications appears in the preface” (Neville). Cole 973. Neville II. p. 222. Partington II, pp. 702–706. Duveen has the second edition of 1773.
81. NICHOLSON, William. A Dictionary of Chemistry, exhibiting the present state of the theory and practice of that science, its application to natural philosophy, the processes of manufactures, metallurgy, and numerous other arts dependent on the properties and habitudes of bodies, in the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms. London: Printed for G.G. and J. Robinson, 1795. continued... 37
2 volumes, 4to, pp. viii, 576; (ii), 577–1132, 4 engraved plates (2 of them double-page tables). Contemporary half diced russia, flat spines gilt with a coronet and the initial N in the lowest compartment, marbled sides and endpapers (short crack in foot of upper joint and tips of lower corners worn of vol. 1). Part of vol. 2 printed on different paper and slightly browned (as usual), dampstain at the bottom of the last 20 leaves and rear endpapers of vol. 1, but a nice set. £1800 FIRST EDITION of Nicholson’s large dictionary of chemistry, “the first dictionary of chemistry by an Englishman, superseding the English translation of Macquer’s dictionary (London, 1771) by the Scot James Keir. Although preferring the antiphlogistic theory of Lavoisier, Nicholson also presents the phlogistic alternative. This work is important for containing one of the earliest English versions of the table of the new chemical nomenclature from the Méthode de nomenclature chimique (Paris, 1787) by Lavoisier et al.” (Neville). Cole 974. Neville II, p. 227. Duveen & Klickstein 137.
82. PARKES, Samuel. The Chemical Catechism, with notes, illustrations, and experiments. The fourth edition, containing the new discoveries and other considerable additions. London: Printed for the author, and sold by Lackington, Allen, and Co… 1810. 8vo, pp. xvi, 562, folding engraved frontispiece. Probably lacking a final advertisement leaf. Caption to the frontispiece shaved but legible, title rather foxed, also the last page. Contemporary speckled calf, spine gilt, new red morocco label (spine slightly rubbed, worn at head, upper joint broken). £140 Fourth edition of a popular and successful work that went through thirteen English editions and several translations. This edition was largely rewritten to accommodate the recent discoveries of Sir Humphry Davy.
83.
PAYEN, Anselme, and Jean-Baptiste-Alphonse CHEVALLIER. Traité Élémentaire des Réactifs, leurs préparations, leurs emplois spéciaux et leurs applications à l’analyse. A Paris: Chez Bachelier… 1822. 8vo, pp. viii, 223, (1), 2 folding engraved plates of apparatus. Some foxing, pale dampstain in upper margin of first and last few leaves and on the plates. Contemporary blue French boards, calf spine, gilt, upper cover stained, front free endpaper dust-soiled. Signed by the authors on the half-title. £450 FIRST EDITION of “the first French treatise on chemical reagents” (Zeitlinger). Dedicated to their teacher, L.N. Vauquelin, this is the first substantial publication of these well-known chemists, one a manufacturing chemist, the other a pharmacist. The book was very successful and went through several editions during the next twenty years. Duveen p. 462 (without mentioning the plates). See Cole 1018 (second edition of 1825). Neville II, p. 281.
84. PECQUET, Jean. Experimenta Nova Anatomica, quibus incognitum hactenus chyli receptaculum, & ab eo per thoracem in ramos usque subclavios Vasa Lactea deteguntur. Ejusdem Dissertatio Anatomica, de circulatione sanguinis, & chyli motu. Hardervici [Harderwyck]: Apud Joannem Tollium. Juxta exemplar Parisiis impressum, 1651. 12mo, pp. (xxii), 204, 6 engraved plates (1 folding). Early signature of Francis Richard on title. Contemporary vellum. Foot of spine rubbed and cracked, upper joint cracked at top, short (1 cm.) tear in fold of plate, otherwise a very good copy. £1800 Second edition, in the same year as the first. The discovery of the thoracic duct. “In his experiments with live dogs Pecquet discovered the thoracic duct and cisterna chylii, which he named the receptaculum chylii. He correctly described the termination of the chyliferous vessels (Aselli’s ‘lacteal veins’) in the cisterna, confuting the erroneous notion that the vessels ended in the liver; continued... 38
he also described the junction of the thoracic duct at the union of the jugular and subclavial veins. In a rare early instance of nearly simultaneous triple independent discovery, the thoracic duct was also discovered independently by the Swedish physician Olof Rudbeck and by Thomas Bartholin” (Norman Catalogue 1676). The volume also contains Pecquet’s dissertation on the circulation of the blood, and letters to Pecquet from Auzout and Mersenne. See G&M 1095 and Grolier One Hundred (Medicine) 28A (the Paris edition). The first edition is properly described as a very rare book, but this second edition is probably even rarer. The editions of 1654 and 1661 are more usually seen.
85. PETIT, Jean Louis. A Treatise of the Diseases of the Bones... Translated from the French... London: Printed for T. Woodward… 1726. 8vo, pp. xvi, 490, (6), woodcuts in the text. Contemporary calf (rebacked, sides rubbed). Some small stains on the endpapers and in the lower margin of the last few leaves, but a very good copy. £1500 FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH. See G&M 4300 (first edition, in French, of 1705). The first important book on the diseases and injuries of bones and joints. It had a profound influence on orthopaedic surgery of the eighteenth century, and included the first description of osteomalacia. It was the only book Petit published during his lifetime. This anonymous translation was made from the enlarged French edition of 1723, and is very scarce.
86. PLATTER, Felix. Observationum, in Hominis Affectibus plerisq., corpori & animo, functionum laesione, dolore, aliave molestia & vitio incommodantibus, libri tres... Basle: Conrad Waldkirch for Ludwig König, 1614. Small 8vo, pp. (xlviii), 845. Without the final blank. Blind library stamp on title and Gg4, ink cancellation on verso and acquisition number at head of dedication, small piece torn from lower blank corner of title, last three gatherings dampstained, some foxing and browning (a few gatherings heavily so). Old half sheep, joints neatly repaired, green leather label. £2500 FIRST EDITION. G&M 3789 (endocrinology), 4297.9 (the earliest book listed on orthopaedics), and 4511.1 (neurology). Platter was one of the foremost pathologists at the end of the sixteenth century. The Observationes is a collection of vivid descriptions of a wide variety of diseases, including all the then known psychiatric disorders. Platter was one of the first to study mental illness scientifically, seeking its origin in physiological rather than supernatural causes. He gives substantial accounts of gynaecological disorders, of the plague, and of certain dermatological conditions. Among the specific contributions to medical history in this book are the first known report of a case of death from hypertrophy of the thymus, in an infant; the first description of the condition later termed “Dupuytren’s contracture”; and an account of a meningioma. See Long, History of pathology, 66–67. Bloch, Geschichte der Hautkrankheiten ( “…important contributions”). Ruhräh, Paediatrics of the past, 237–239. Norman Catalogue 1716.
87. PORTAL, Paul. La Pratique des Accouchemens soutenue d’un grand nombre d’observations. A Paris: De l’Imprimerie de Gabriel Martin, et se vend chez l’Auteur, ruë Saint Martin... 1685. 8vo, pp. (xx), 368, fine engraved frontispiece portrait of the author holding a copy of his book, and 8 engraved plates. Signature removed from upper corner of title by bleaching, single small wormhole in lower blank corner almost throughout, plates a little browned, a few minor marks. Contemporary mottled calf, rebacked using the original morocco label, spine gilt. £1600 FIRST EDITION. G&M 6148. Portal was the first to appreciate the situation in placenta praevia, and had a clear insight into the actual findings and management of that entity, which is probably his most important contribution to the science of midwifery. He also demonstrated that version continued... 39
could be done with one foot, and taught that face presentation usually ran a normal course. Portal was a pupil of Mauriceau, and worked with him in the Hôtel Dieu. This important and eminently practical treatise was based on his personal experiences and observations. The plates depict abnormal and monstrous foetuses. See Cutter & Viets pp. 81–83.
88. POTT, Percivall. Remarks on the Disease, commonly called a Fistula in Ano. London: Printed for L. Hawes, W. Clarke, and R. Collins... 1765. 8vo, pp. xi, 115, 1 leaf (adverts), 1 engraved plate. Tear in a3 (touching a few letters but without loss) repaired in the margin with paper, some very minor soiling. Original boards, neatly rebacked with matching paper, original printed paper label. Early signature on title of George Trusted, and his armorial bookplate on the front pastedown. £1800 FIRST EDITION. G&M 3424.2: “Probably the greatest English classic of colon-rectal surgery. Pott recommended the practice of simple division rather than the newer, more complicated methods proposed by Cheselden and Le Dran, and audaciously pointed out that there were lessons which regular practitioners might learn from quacks apropos of this subject.” Norman Catalogue 1733.
89. POUTEAU, Claude. Mélanges de Chirurgie. A Lyon: Chez Geoffroy Regnault,... 1760. 8vo, pp. xii, 526, 1 leaf (list of plates, listing only two), and 5 folding engraved plates on 3 sheets (two plates are numbered 1 and two numbered 2, plates 2 and 3 are on the same sheet). Leaves E4 and H6 are cancels. Contemporary mottled calf, spine gilt in compartments, marbled endpapers. Early inscription on title deleted, short crack at top on upper joint, tiny (1 cm.) hole in leather of lower joint, tiny chip in top of spine, otherwise a fine copy. £700 FIRST EDITION. Pouteau studied surgery in Paris under Petit and Le Dran, but returned to his native Lyon to practise. He became famous for his improvements in the operation of lithotomy — his record with perineal lithotomy was probably never excelled, achieving only 2.5 percent mortality in 120 consecutive cases. Contrary to most other surgeons, Pouteau used the lithotome almost exclusively, devising a modification of his own, illustrated on the last plate. This collection of papers and observations in surgery, one of only three published works of Pouteau, includes chapters on cauterisation, head wounds, the stone, amputation and bandaging, etc.
90. PRING, Daniel. An Exposition of the Principles of Pathology, and of the treatment of diseases. London: Printed for Thomas and George Underwood… 1823. 8vo, pp. ix, 1 leaf (contents), 512 pages. Contemporary half calf, spine (neatly repaired) decorated with gilt rules and blind centres. Foxing on the first and last leaves otherwise generally very clean. Small printed book label of G. Walker on front pastedown. £200 SOLE EDITION. Daniel Pring (1789–1859) was a pupil of George Freer in Birmingham, became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, and practised in Bath. This was his second published work on pathology.
First English Book on Poisons? 91. [RAMESAY, William.] Lifes security: or a phylosophical and physical discourse; shewing the names, natures, & vertues of all sorts of venomes and venomous things: as in poysons in general and in particular. Also describing which are poysonous animals, and which poysonous vegetables; with the signes how you shall know them, and the remedy for cure of any poyson by them. By experience, & learned prescriptions of the best authors extant: as it was humbly tendred to the Kings Majesty about four years ago; and now Anno Dom. 1665 published for the good of his subjects. London: printed 1665. continued... 40
Small 8vo, pp. (lxiv), 239, (1), (16). Contemporary sheep, spine gilt (spine rubbed, lower portion of upper joint cracked). A very good crisp copy; small blindstamps in the first three leaves of the Macclesfield library. £3000 FIRST EDITION, third issue. This is probably the first English medical book on poisons. It includes a long section on rabies, various kinds of snakebite, and on the stings of bees, wasps and scorpions. English books on poisons are few and far between before the nineteenth century. Mead’s Mechanical Account of Poisons was published in 1702, and Prestwich's Dissertation on Mineral, Animal, & Vegetable, Poisons in 1775. No British author wrote systematically on forensic medicine until 1788. Nemec, while not a bibliography of the subject, lists nothing in English on toxicology before 1829. A very rare book by the son of David Ramsay, an eminent Scottish clockmaker. William Ramesey altered the spelling of his surname out of a fanciful belief that his family had descended from the pharaohs of Egypt. As a young man he was a professional astrologer, but his later life was devoted to the practice of medicine. He was admitted to the College of Physicians in 1661, created MD by royal mandate, and was appointed physician in ordinary to Charles II. Wing R208. The first issue, entitled Thanasima kai deleteria [in Greek] Tractatus de venenis, or, A treatise of poysons, appeared in 1661, and the second in 1663 with the altered title This third issue consists of the original sheets with a new title-page, altering the title for a second time. All three issues are extremely uncommon.
Quinine Anticipated 92. RANBY, John. The Method of Treating Gunshot Wounds. London: Printed for John and Paul Knapton,… 1744. 8vo, pp. (xvi), 84. Paper slightly browned, and margins of first and last few leaves stained by the binding. Contemporary sheep, rubbed and sides marked, neatly rebacked and corners repaired, front free endpaper replaced. £650 FIRST EDITION. Ranby extols the use of Peruvian bark for the suppuration which follows gunshot wounds, and makes the acute observation that its virtue is increased if the elixir of vitriol be given with it. He thus anticipated by many years the use of quinine. He also foreshadowed the formation of the Army Medical Service. He gives an account of some of the surgical cases in his care when he served in the German campaign which ended with the battle of Dettingen. Ranby was sergeant-surgeon to George II, and Fellow of the Royal Society. He was influential in the constitution of a corporation of surgeons as distinct from barbers, and was the first master of the newly founded surgeons’ company.
Major Advance in Paediatrics 93. ROSÉN VON ROSENSTEIN, Nils. Underrättelser om Barn-Sjukdomar och deras Bote-Medel... Stockholm: Kongl. Wet. Acad., 1764. Small 8vo, pp. (ii), 363, (11). Paper lightly browned. Contemporary half sheep, tips of corners worn, wormhole in lower joint, no front free endpaper. Very good copy. £3500 FIRST EDITION IN BOOK FORM. 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… He mentions artificial feeding ‘by means of a little instrument or sucking-bottle’… He was in advance of his day in advising that ‘all food for children ought to be covered over, that no insect or any such thing can get at it’… 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…” continued... 41
The book is extremely rare. It was first published in serial form in the calendars of the Royal Academy, of which only one complete set is known. This first edition as a book is not in Osler, BMC, etc., although Waller, of course, owned a copy.
Item 94, printed manuals for the Royal Engineers.
Military Engineers 94. ROYAL ENGINEERS. [1] Rules for Military Mining, according to the practice of the Royal Engineer Establishment at Chatham. Reprinted by order of Colonel H. Sandham, R.E., Director. Chatham: Printed by George H. Windeyer… [n.d., c. 1853]. [Bound with:] [2] Exercise of the Cylindrical Pontoon, according to the practice of the Royal Engineer Establishment, Chatham. Reprinted by order of Colonel H. Sandham, R.E., Director, 1858. Chatham: Printed by A. Etherington… [And:] [3] Questions and Answers of Sapping, according to the practice of the Royal Engineer Establishment at Chatham. 1859. Chatham: Royal Engineer Establishment, Brompton Barracks. [And:] [4] PASLEY, Lt.-Gen. Sir Charles. A simple practical Treatise on Field Fortification, for the use of the regimental schools of the Royal Engineer Establishment. Reprinted 1860. Colonel H. Sandham,…Director. Chatham: Royal Engineer Establishment… [And:] [5] JONES, Sgt.-Maj. John. The Iron-Band Gabion and its applicability to various military field purposes. Chatham: Printed by A.T. Fordham… 1860. [And:] [6] BURGOYNE, Sir John Fox. Memoranda on the Defence of Posts. [Chatham(?):] 1857. [And:] [7] The Method of Forming a Bridge of Casks, according to the practice of the Royal Engineer Establishment, Chatham. Chatham: Printed by A. Etherington… 1857. 7 works in 1 volume, 8vo and small 8vo, paper slightly browned, some minor soiling and fingermarks, two tears without loss in the title of [7]. Modern half calf antique. £950 continued... 42
1. 8vo, pp. iv, (iii), 99. Text illustrations. No copy in COPAC, which shows one copy of each of two other editions. 2. 8vo, 27 pages, 4 plates. Not in COPAC (1 copy of the 1852 printing). 3. 8vo, 24 pages, and 10 lithographed plates on 5 sheets. Not in COPAC. 4. 8vo, 25 pages, errata slip. Not in COPAC (5 copies of the 1823 edition). 5. 8vo, 12 pages, and 5 lithographed plates. 1 copy in COPAC (also 2 copies of the 1862 edition). 6. Small 8vo, 1 leaf + 6 pages. 1 copy in COPAC (also 3 copies of the 1862 edition). 7. Small 8vo, 3 leaves, pp. (5)–35, 5 stilted plates. Not in COPAC. A collection of extremely rare booklets printed in Chatham for the exclusive use of the Royal Engineers. In addition to the seven listed above is a 2-page work, 16mo, pasted to the inside of a card cover entitled “New Pontoon Exercise (Lieut.-Colonel Blanchard’s)”. Probably printed in very small numbers, and intended for use in the field, it is hardly surprising that few examples of these highly individual and detailed manuals have survived. In 1855, during the period of the publication of these works, the Royal Engineers and the Royal Sappers and Miners were united into one corps.
95. RYDER, Hugh. New Practical Observations in Surgery, containing divers remarkable cases and cures. London: Printed for James Partridge… 1685. Small 8vo, 7 leaves, 96 pages. Without the first leaf (blank). Title a little dust-soiled and with a faint library stamp, also an old repair to the fore-edge on the verso, upper margins cut rather close affecting a few headlines, paper slightly browned. Modern calf antique. £2400 SOLE EDITION, the first of Ryder’s three books on surgery, and the one on which the other two were based. Ryder was a naval surgeon and surgeon to the king. His book is intended principally for naval and military surgeons. The first six chapters (21 pages) are on wounds of the head, with a special introduction. Ryder realises that he is not a well-known figure, but the book carries the approbation of Gideon Harvey, James Molins, and three officers of the Company of Surgeons. Wing R2418. Rare: Wing and ESTC both locate the same 5 copies, and COPAC adds 2 more. It is not in the British Library.
“Smelling Salts” 96. SAGE, [Balthazar Georges]. Expériences Propres à faire connoître que l’alkali volatilfluor est le remède le plus efficace dans les Asphyxies; avec des remarques sur les effets avantageux qu’il produit dans la morsure de la vipère, dans la rage, la brûlure, l’apoplexie, &c. A Paris: de l’Imprimerie Royale, 1777. Small 8vo, 1 leaf, pp. vii, 1 leaf, pp. 62. Later marbled boards. £300 Paris edition in the same year as the first (published at Nancy, and very rare). 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. Cole 1145. Duveen p. 523 (third edition). Neville II, pp. 413–414, calling this the first edition. Waller 8395 (”second edition”). Wellcome V, p. 5. Not in Huston, Resuscitation.
97. SCHEELE, Carl Wilhelm. Traité Chimque de l’Air et du Feu… Avec une introduction de Torbern Bergman… Ouvrage traduit de l’Allemand, par le Baron de Dieterich… A Paris, Rue et Hôtel Serpente. 1781. [And:] Supplement au Traité Chimique de l’Air et du Feu de M. Scheele, contenant un tableau abrégé des nouvelles découvertes sur les diverses continued... 43
espèces d’air, par Jean-Godefroi Léonhardy; des notes de M. Richard Kirwan, & une lettre du Docteur Priestley à ce chimiste anglois, sur l’ouvrage de M. Scheele; traduit et augmenté de notes…par M. le Baron de Dietrich… A Paris: Rue et Hotel Serpente. 1785. 2 volumes, 12mo, pp. xliv, (45)–268, 1 folding engraved plate; pp. xiv, (ii), (13)–214, (2) blank Contemporary mottled calf, flat spines gilt, brown morocco labels, red edges, marbled endpapers (probably by different binders, and not quite uniform). Head of spine of Supplement worn, and foot chipped, one corner a little worn, some light foxing or browning, but a very good set. Bookplates of J. Laissus. £1800 FIRST EDITION IN FRENCH of Scheele’s famous treatise describing his independent discovery of oxygen. The translator was Baron P.F. de Dieterich (1748–1793), a distinguished scientist who became mayor of Strasburg at the outset of the French Revolution and was later executed. His notes are added at the end of the volume. Lavoisier submitted a favourable report to the Académie des Sciences on this translation (see Duveen & Klickstein 61) and, with Berthollet, applied for the printing privilege. Partington calls the book “very rare”, and it is even rarer with the supplement, published four years later, in which are incorporated the additions to the second German edition of 1782, viz. Leonhardi’s survey of the new discoveries on gases (with additions and notes by the translator), remarks by Kirwan, a letter by Priestley, Scheele’s treatise on the amount of “air pur” (oxygen) in the atmosphere, and indexes. Cole 1165 and 1166. Duveen p. 533 (without the Supplement). Neville II, p. 431. Partington III, p. 211, no. VII A and B. See Dibner 41 and Horblit 92 for the first edition.
First British Celestial Atlas 98. SELLER, JOHN. Atlas Coelestis containing the systems and theoryes of the planets the constellations of the starrs. and other phenomena’s of the heavens with nessesary tables relateing thereto… [London: sold by J. Seller, 1677.] 12mo (in 4s), engraved title, 72 pages, and 56 double-page engraved plates (of which 31 are celestial maps). Contemporary mottled calf, rebacked, rear endpapers replaced. £11,000 FIRST EDITION of the first British celestial atlas. John Seller was an important figure in English cartography as he set out to break the monopoly enjoyed by the Dutch in the production of atlases, particularly maritime atlases. Seller overreached himself, however, and later productions were less ambitious; he produced a terrestrial atlas in 1670 (Atlas Minimus), followed by this, the first celestial atlas printed in England, seven years later. The plates show the systems of Ptolemy, Copernicus and Tycho Brahe, maps of the moon and lunar phases, the planets, comets, tables of lunar phases, eclipses, etc, followed by 31 maps of constellations. The plate count varies in descriptions because not all of the plates are counted as double. In this copy all the plates are bound in pairs facing each other; some are clearly printed from one doublepage copperplate while at least six are printed from single-page copperplates. Wing S2463.
99. SMEATON, John. Experimental Enquiry into the natural powers of wind and water to turn mills and other machines depending on a circular motion. And an experimental examination of the quantity and proportion of mechanic power necessary to be employed in giving different degrees of velocity to heavy bodies from a state of rest. Also new fundamental experiments upon the collision of bodies. London: Printed for I. and J. Taylor… 1794. 8vo, pp. iv, 110, 5 folding engraved plates from drawings by the author, 2 folding letterpress tables. Original blue boards (new paper spine, no label), uncut. A few spots and slight offsetting from the plates, but a nice, fresh copy. £800 First edition in book form of these three papers, detailing the experiments “that constituted his chief contribution to science” (DSB). The first and longest paper is best known for Smeaton’s demonstration that overshot waterwheels, contrary to popular opinion, are twice as efficient as undershot. continued... 44
“Smeaton was not only the greatest civil engineer of the 18th century but ‘the first to achieve distinction as an engineering scientist’ (Skempton). His reputation largely sprang from these three seminal papers. The first and most famous, on wind- and watermills (‘justly regarded as the most masterly report ever published on this subject’ , comments Samuel Smiles) established an empirical tradition in British engineering as well as the use of scale model testing in fluid mechanics. The second paper, which grew directly out of the first, is concerned with prime-mover experiments, particularly in relation to the concept of work, while the third, on the collision of bodies, sets out successfully to measure exactly the loss of energy on impact using an instrument designed and made by Smeaton himself. In all three he is concerned to apply sound theory to practical engineering and ‘in taking this position…was equalled by few and excelled by none (Norman Smith, ‘Scientific Work’ in John Smeaton FRS, edited by A.W. Skempton). “All three were widely disseminated and influential. Originally published in the Royal Society’s Phil. Trans. in 1760, 1776 and 1782, this is their first appearance together” (Julia Elton, Catalogue 13). Skempton, British civil engineering 1640–1840, 1343. Roberts & Trent, Bibliotheca mechanica, p. 297.
100. SNOW, John. On Chloroform and Other Anaesthetics: their action and administration. Edited, with a memoir of the author, by Benjamin W. Richardson, M.D… London: John Churchill… 1858. 8vo, pp. viii, xliv, 443, + 34 pages of Churchill’s advertisements dated July 1858 inserted at the end. One woodcut illustration. Title neatly rehinged in the inner margin, paper a little browned. Original brown panelled cloth, very neatly rebacked preserving most of the original backstrip, corners repaired, endpapers replaced. Small old library stamp on title, and in gilt lettering on the spine. Neat underlining of the text throughout. £2800 FIRST EDITION. Snow, the first specialist in clinical anaesthesia, placed the administration of ether and chloroform on a scientific basis with the publication of the present treatise. Snow was the first to perform experimental research on the physiology of the anaesthetised state, and the information obtained during the course of his investigations influenced the construction of the first regulating inhaler for clinical use. He experimented on animals to practise endotracheal anaesthesia and the technique of carbon dioxide rebreathing, described intercostal paralysis, determined anaesthetic concentrations in air and blood, experimented with dozens of anaesthetic agents (including amylene, which he was the first to administer), and defined the five stages of anaesthesia. Snow’s large On Chloroform appeared shortly after his untimely death from cerebral haemorrhage; it includes a definitive biography by his friend Benjamin Ward. Richardson, and a large index. G&M 5666. Norman catalogue 1970. Duncum pp. 17–22.
On Navigation by Bats 101. SPADONI, Paolo. Dissertazione Epistolare sul volo de’ Pipistrelli Accietati e sul passaggio de’ veggenti del Dottor Paolo Spadoni…al Sig. Abate Lazzaro Spallanzani. Macerata: Presso Bartolommeo Capitani, 1801. 8vo, pp. xiii, 1 leaf, pp. 72. Contemporary Italian wrappers, old paper shelf label on spine, uncut. A fine copy. Presentation copy, inscribed at the foot of the title: “Donato dall’ Autore alla Società Georgica.” £650 FIRST EDITION. This book, written in 1795, is an accurate account of the experiments conducted by Spadoni on the flight of pipistrelle bats, following Spallanzani’s experiments on the same subject; Spadoni was one of two Italian scientists invited to repeat Spallanzani’s work. In his Lettera sopra il sospetto di un nuovo senso nei pipistrelli (Turin, 1794), Spallanzani postulated that bats possessed a sixth sense, having found that blinded bats could fly without striking artificial obstacles. It was a French scientist, L. Jurine, who demonstrated that blinded bats did collide with obstacles after their ears were plugged, but the bats’ use of supersonic sound to navigate was not demonstrated until 1941. Prandi, Bibliografia di Lazzaro Spallanzani, p. 150; see also pp. 54–56.
45
Item 100, John Snow’s chloroform inhaler.
102. SQUIRE, Jane. A Proposal to determine our Longitude. The second edition, in English only. London: Printed for the author, and sold by S. Cope… 1743. 8vo, 3 leaves, pp. 5–160, (3) contents, folding engraved table of “Lodgitude”. The contents leaves (signed L1 and L2) bound after p. 152 and p. 153 is unnumbered and blank. Half-title. Old library stamp on the back of the folding table. Contemporary calf, green morocco label on spine, circular green morocco label in the centre of both covers with symbols in gilt within a gilt border (as in other copies in original bindings). Top of spine slightly worn, tops of joints just beginning to crack, but a very nice copy. £1200 Second edition. Jane Squire’s was one of the more unusual methods of determining longitude. “And finally, to complete our roster of nutty longitude theorists, we have Jane Squire (fl. 1731– 1743)… Squire recognizes that every point on Earth corresponds to a point on the celestial sphere that is zenithal to it. She divides the globe and sky into a million lozenges, or ‘cloves’ as she calls them. Since only 3,000 stars are known, she states, there will be only one chance in 300 to find a star in one of the fields, but more stars can be discovered, and eventually there will also be glasses so that stars can be seen in the daytime. She next proposes that the zero of terrestrial longitude be drawn through Bethlehem, and that ‘astral time’ be reckoned from there, and she requires accurate tables of sunrise there in order to compare the astral time with local solar time at sea…[and] an continued... 46
accurate clock will be needed!” (Owen Gingerich, “Cranks and Opportunists” in Andrewes (ed.), The Quest for Longitude, pp. 146–148). The first edition appeared the year before and has the text in French and English in parallel columns. The present edition is much rarer (by the holdings in COPAC). The Proposal itself was first published in 1731 and is extremely rare (only the BL copy in ESTC). It occupies the first 16 pages here, and is followed by correspondence sent and received in the intervening years, and then (p. 61) by “The Explanation of a Proposal…”).
Early Hospital Reforms 103. TENON, [Jacques René]. Mémoires sur les Hôpitaux de Paris. A Paris: De l’imprimerie de Ph.-D. Pierres… 1788. 4to, pp. (viii), lxxiv, 472, 15 folding engraved plates (including 1 very large) of hospital plans, 2 folding tables. Faint trace of a small library stamp erased from the title and dedication. Contemporary mottled sheep, spine gilt in compartments (head of spine and tips of corners nicely restored), green morocco label, marbled endpapers. A few unobtrusive scuff marks on the lower cover, but a nice, clean copy. £1500 FIRST EDITION. G&M 1600. Tenon’s major monograph on the hospitals of Paris, in which he described the appalling conditions prevailing there, resulted in rapid reforms being made. He had wanted to achieve this for forty years, and when the King commissioned him to report on the hospitals of Paris, he did so in great detail. Contemporary with Howard in England, Tenon was the most important of the early French hospital reformers, and was instrumental in founding a special hospital for children. See Garrison p. 400. Norman catalogue 2061.
104. VALLI, Eusebio. Experiments on Animal Electricity, with their application to physiology. And some pathological and medical observations. London: Printed for J. Johnson… 1793. 8vo, pp. xvi, 323, (1). Modern boards as the original, uncut. Signature of James Johnstone on a binder’s leaf before the title, two library stamps on the title and a few in the lower margin elsewhere. £350 FIRST EDITION. Valli was the first to demonstrate that the most violent contractions in an animal are produced when lead has been applied to the nerves and silver to the muscles and that zinc excited more powerful contractions than any other metal when applied to the nerves. He found that when a frog had lost its sensibility to the passage of a current, it gained it by rest. Valli later established the identity of the nervous and the electric fluids, and proved that the convulsion took place by merely bringing the muscles themselves into contact with the nerves without the intervention of any metal whatsoever, which Galvani had described in his Dell’ Uso e dell’ Attiva dell’ Arco Conduttore nelle Contrazioni dei Muscoli (1794). As the dedication is to an English physician, and as the third leaf is a tribute to the translator, it would seem that this English edition was done from Valli’s original unpublished manuscript. Mottelay pp. 302–303. Wheeler Gift 585. Not in Ekelöf. See Fulton and Cushing, A Bibliographical study of the Galvani and the Aldini writings on animal electricity (1936), p. 245.
The Venturi Principle 105. VENTURI, Giovanni Battista. Recherches Expérimentales sur le Principe de la Communication Latérale du Mouvement dans les Fluides, appliquée à l’explication de différens phénomènes hydrauliques. A Paris: Chez Houel et Ducros…[and] Théophile Barrois… An VI.—1797. 8vo, 88 pages, and 2 folding engraved plates. Modern paste-paper boards, uncut. Short tear in upper margin of last two leaves neatly repaired, otherwise a fine copy. £3800 continued... 47
FIRST EDITION of this important and surprisingly rare work in the history of hydraulics, which propounds the principle known by the author’s name, that fluids under pressure in passing through converging pipes gain speed and lose head, and vice versa for diverging pipes. Venturi also discusses the role played by the diffusion of eddies in open-channel flow and indicated that essentially the same phenomena were to be found in the motion of the atmosphere. He was apparently the first to suggest use of the reduced depth of high-velocity flow from a spillway—just prior to the formation of a hydraulic jump—as a means of gaining head for draining purposes. Robert & Trent, pp. 339–341. Rouse & Ince, History of hydraulics, pp. 136–137.
106. VESALIUS, Andreas. Anatomia. [Venice: G.A. & J. de Franceschi, 1604]. [Bound with:] FABRICIUS, ab Aquapendente, Hieronymous. Le Opere Chirurgiche…devise in due parti. Nella prima si tratta delli tumori, ferite, ulceri, rotture e slocature. Nella seconda delle operationi principali di chirurgia, tradotte in lingua Italiana. Padua: G. Cadorino, 1683. 2 works in 1 volume (the first in two parts), folio. I: 4 leaves, pp. 510, (46), 10 leaves, including the finely engraved title-page and 223 woodcuts in the text. Title a little spotted in blank margins, occasional very faint dampstaining, but a nice, large copy with many edges uncut. II: 4 leaves, 288 pages and 9 engraved plates. Large woodcut printer’s device on title (occasional light browning). Two important medical works, both nice copies, bound together in modern vellum, ties. £6000 I. This is the fifth edition of Vesalius’s Fabrica. It is the fourth edition to be illustrated and the second to use this set of woodcuts. It is a line-for-line reprint of the 1568 edition, with the addition of a handsomely engraved title-page and a new series of anatomical tables compiled by Fabio Paulo from Rufus and Soranus. These additional tables have a separate title-page giving the date of publication which is absent from the title-page of the first part. The 1604 edition was published by the sons of the publisher of the 1568 edition. Cushing suggests, and was clearly right, based by evidence supplied by this sammelband, that this edition of Vesalius was probably issued to fill the demand for copies created when Fabricius of Aquapendente became professor of anatomy at Padua and made the text required reading. Cushing VI.A.-5. II. Fabricius’s textbook of surgery was first published in 1617 and described techniques entirely new for that age. It was reprinted many times, even into the 18th century. Fabricius (ca. 1533– 1619), was a great professor at Padua, a pupil of Falloppio and teacher of Harvey. This edition is very rare with no copy listed in OCLC. A “seconda impressione” was issued a year later.
107. VESALIUS, Andreas. Opera Anatomica & Chirurgica cura Hermanni Boerhaave… & Bernhardi Siegefried Albini. Lugduni Batavorum [Leiden]: Apud Joannem du Vivie et Joan. & Herm. Verbeek, 1725. 2 volumes, folio, pp. (xlii), 572; (viii), 577–684, (2), 685–1156, (51), engraved title in volume 1, engraved portrait, and 82 engraved plates (12 folding) numbered 1–79 + 76a–c. Title-pages in red and black with an engraved vignette, numerous engraved illustrations in the text, woodcut ornaments and devices. Contemporary Dutch vellum, spines lettered in manuscript; binding a little shaken with stitching a little loose, lightly dust-soiled, small split at the foot of one joint; some text leaves browned in the second volume, but a very clean and fresh copy. Neat Van der Hoeven inscription and bookplate in volume 1. £7000 FIRST COLLECTED EDITION of Vesalius’s works. As with other collected works edited by Boerhaave and Albinus, this is a beautiful production, with copperplate reproductions of the Vesalian woodblocks by Jan Wandelaar, the illustrator of Albinus’s anatomical atlases (Boerhaave was unaware that the original blocks still existed). The editors added explanations to Vesalius’s sixteenth-century anatomical nomenclature for their eighteenth century readers, and prefaced the first volume with a biography of Vesalius. The first volume contains a reprint of the 1555 edition continued... 48
Item 107, The engraved version of the famous woodcut title-page.
49
of the Fabrica; the second volume contains the Epitome, the China-root epistle, the spurious Chirurgia magna, Falloppio’s letter to Manna, Vesalius’s Examen of Falloppio, and Cuneus’s Examen. Curiously, the editors did not include the venesection letter. Cushing VI.D.-8: “This elaborate edition of Vesalius was put out without regard for expense. The typography is excellent and the plates skilfully engraved.” Lindeboom, Bibliotheca Boerhaaviana, 554. Norman catalogue 2143. This was the only collected edition.
108. WALES, William. An Inquiry into the Present State of Population in England and Wales; and the proportion which the present number of inhabitants bears to the number at former periods. London: Printed by G. Bigg…for C. Nourse… 1781. 8vo, 1 leaf, 79 pages. Lacking the half-title. Tables in the text. Modern marbled wrappers. £1100 FIRST EDITION. Wales took great interest in questions of population, and in the absence of a national census he instituted a series of inquiries of his own both in person and by letter in a serious attempt to establish the population of the country. He encountered so much opposition from the belief that the country, then at war with France, might been seen to be weaker than it really was that he could not carry his researches very far. He published his findings in the present work, in which he put forward his belief, contrary to the general opinion, that the population was increasing. Seventeen years later Malthus confirmed in his Essay on the Principle of Population that the population was increasing, and in geometric ratio unlike the food supply. Wales was master of the Royal Mathematical School within Christ's Hospital, and Captain Cook’s navigator on his second voyage.
“Geology” 109. WARREN, Erasmus. Geologia: or, A Discourse concerning the Earth before the Deluge. Wherein the form and properties ascribed to it, in a book intituled The Theory of the Earth, are excepted against... London: Printed for R. Chiswell, 1690. 4to, pp. (xvi), 359, (1). With 4 engraved illustrations in the text. Title is a cancel, within double ruled border. Worm track and a small wormhole in the inner margin of most leaves. Contemporary mottled sheep, spine with gilt centres and unlettered, sides ruled in blind (neat repair to lower joint and tips of corners), upper corner of front free endpaper torn away. Provenance: Wiliiam Vizar, 1776; Th. Swanson of Great Catworth [Huntingdonshire], 1790; J. Smith also of Gt. Catworth; Smith of Mickle Hill, Keyston [Huntingdonshire], with their signatures in ink or pencil on the front free endpapers. Some MS notes on the rear endpapers. £900 FIRST EDITION. The first English book in which the term “geology” is used. It was written in answer to Burnet’s Theory of the earth, the cavalier treatment of which perturbed Warren. “Warren maintained that God created the earth with its present form, and he defended the beauty of mountains against Burnet’s diatribes. Getting into the scientific spirit, Warren even tried to show that there were mechanical problems with Burnet’s hypothesis and that the earth could not possibly dry and crack in the manner he advocated” (Linda Hall Library, Theories of the earth 1644–1830, 8). Wing W966A (issue with Chiswell’s initial in the imprint; W966 has “Richard”).
110. WATHEN, Jonathan. The Conductor and Containing Splints; or, a description of two instruments, for the safer conveyance of more perfect cure of fractured legs... London: Printed for T. Cadell,… 1781. 8vo, 1 leaf, pp. 28, (3), 5 engraved plates, (2 folding). Lacking the half-title. Slight foxing in margin. Modern marbled wrappers. £120 Third edition. Wathen invented a splint for use in conveying cases of fractured limbs. In this edition he includes improvements to the splint, and the description of a tourniquet with a ratchet.
50
111. WATT, Robert. Cases of Diabetes, Consumption, &c. with observations on the history and treatment of diseases in general. Paisley: Printed for Archibald Constable and Co. Edinburgh... 1808. 8vo, pp. xvi, 328. Without the half-title. Calligraphic library stamp in inner margin of title, one gathering (4 leaves) spotted, corners of a few leaves creased. Contemporary half calf, fine copy. £450 FIRST EDITION of Watt’s first book. He was also the author of Bibliotheca Britannica, a monumental work of bibliography which had its origin in the catalogue of his own medical library.
An Englishman’s Commentary on Galileo 112. WHITE, Thomas. De Mundo Dialogi Tres quibus materia, hoc est, quantitas, numerus, figura, partes, partium qualitas & genera: forma, hoc est, magnorum corporum motus… caussae, hoc est, movens, efficiens, gubernans… et tandem definitio… Parisiis: Apud Dionysium Moreau… 1642. 4to, pp. (xviii), 446, (18). Two pages of diagrams on pp. (viii) and (ix). Contemporary speckled calf, spine gilt in compartments (neat repairs to tops of joints), red morocco label (chipped), no front free endpaper. Title slightly dust soiled and with one or two very small nicks in the fore-edge, some very minor foxing, generally an excellent copy. Armorial bookplate of the Rt. Hon. Algernon Capell, Earl of Essex, dated 1701, pasted to the verso of the title. £4500 FIRST EDITION. De Mundo was inspired by Galileo’s Dialogo. Like Galileo’s book it is written in the form of dialogues, the first dealing with cosmology, the second with questions of motion, the third with problems of cause. “Galileo’s views play a part in the first dialogue, particularly with regard to the nature of comets, and his ideas on motion occupy most of the second dialogue. Although White repudiated the circular motion of the earth in this book, he took pains to set forth Galileo’s arguments at length and with care, giving special attention to his theory of the tides. Since Galileo’s Dialogo, in which these arguments had originally appeared, was a rigorously banned book, one may well wonder whether White was entirely opposed to Galileo, or whether he had in mind the purpose of keeping his ideas in circulation as much as that of criticizing them” (Drake). All of White’s own books were banned in 1661. White was a respected member of Mersenne’s circle in Paris, where he wrote his two major works of natural philosophy, De mundo being one of them. “…with his remarkable accommodation of Copernican heliocentric cosmology and newly revived atomic theory, White was later identified by Leibniz as one who had contrived to ‘reconcile Aristotle with modern philosophy’ (Southgate, 9). Favourable assessments of De mundo were made by contemporaries, including Descartes…” (ODNB). Thomas White (1593–1676), publishing here under the name of Thomas Anglus, was an English Catholic recusant who studied and taught at a number of English colleges on the continent. He was a friend of Sir Kenelm Digby and Thomas Hobbes, who wrote a long critique of the present work which was only published in 1976. Stillman Drake, “Galileo in English literature of the seventeenth century”, in Galileo, Man of Science, ed. by E. McMullin (1967), pp. 423–424.
113. WILLIAMS, John. An Historical Account of Sub-Ways in the British Metropolis, for the flow of pure water and gas into the houses of the inhabitants, without disturbing the pavements: including the projects in 1824 and 1825. London: Published by Carpenter & Son…and J.M. Richardson… 1828. 8vo, pp. viii, 472, and 4 hand-coloured engraved plates. Half-title (reading “Sub-ways proved to be essential to the purity of the water in the metropolis…”). Title a little dust-soiled and with small pieces missing from the corners and a tear repaired in the lower margin, first and last few gatherings a little browned. Original drab boards, rebacked to match, original printed paper label (chipped), uncut and largely unopened. £550 continued... 51
FIRST EDITION. This substantial volume is on what would now be called ducts, “being a dry tunnel, immediately under the surface of the Streets, to receive pipes or tubes, to convey Water, Gas, &c. into the houses, without at any time opening the ground, or disturbing the pavement…” (pp. 1–2). However, the book is much more than a prospectus for this apparently admirable, but unadopted even today, system. It is an extremely detailed historical and practical treatise on civil engineering as applied to public health: the water supply of London, on the filthy state of the water in the Thames, and on the measures required for the removal of sewage and for the supply of pure water to the metropolis. It was only four years later that cholera first broke out in London. Very scarce. This was the only edition.
114. [ZANOTTI, Eustachio.]. La Meridiana del tempio di San Petronio rinnovata l’anno MDCCLXXVI. Si aggiunge la ristampa del libro pubblicato l’anno 1695. sopra la ristaurazione della meridiana eseguita dai celebri matematici Gio: Domenico Cassini e Domenico Guglielmini. In Bologna: Nell’ Instututo delle Scienze. 1779. 4to, pp. 56, vi, 1 leaf (with full-page engraving incorporating a portrait of Cassini on the verso, recto blank), pp. 88, and 2 folding engraved plates (one very large) measuring 36.2 x 60.5 cm printed on 2 sheets pasted together and 52.5 x 179.5 cm printed on 11 sheets pasted together. Some foxing (mostly light), signature on the first page of the dedication. Contemporary vellum, brown morocco label on spine (splash stain on lower cover). £3200 FIRST EDITION, incorporating a reprint of Cassini and Guglielmini’s book with a similar title published in 1695. In 1653 Gian Domenico Cassini (1625–1712, the first of that dynasty of astronomers) began work on a new and larger meridian in the church of San Petronio in Bologna, replacing the one constructed by Egnatio Danti in 1575. The construction succeeded perfectly, and its success made Cassini a brilliant reputation. During the following years he made numerous astronomical observations, providing increasingly more precise measurements. They enabled him to succeed where Galileo had failed in producing ephemerides, published in 1668 and again in 1693, used by astronomers and navigators to determine longitude, and by Ole Rømer in 1675 to demonstrate that light has a finite speed. Eighty years later Eustachio Zanotti restored Cassini’s meridian. “Zanotti’s accomplishments also included the restoration in 1776 of Gian Domenico Cassini’s sundial in the church of San Petronio. The displaced perforated roofing slab forming the gnomon was raised slightly, restoring the instrument to its original height. The old deformed iron ship representing the meridian was removed and a solid foundation was laid as a base for new level marble slabs with the new brass meridian strip. Accurate geodetic and topographic measurements made in 1904 and 1925 have verified that the instrument has remained as Zanotti left it, that is, in the position that perfectly reproduces Cassini’s original conditions of construction” (DSB). The two folding plates are printed from the same copperplates used in Cassini and Guglielmini’s book of 1695, but the second plate, which at almost 6 feet long must be one of the largest in a scientific book, has an additional strip along the bottom illustrating Zanotti’s new brass meridian.
52
Item 19: Carpue, the restoration of a lost nose.