[Venice: Tacuino, 1519 (colophon of part I dated September 1518)]. First edition of one of the greatest rarities in the alchemical and chemical literature; this is an exceptionally interesting copy, bound with twelve leaves of contemporary script conveying an all-encompassing ‘tree of human endeavours’, charting the features and visually suggesting..... More
Item #4395

Paris: André Wechel, 1572; 1568. First editions of two of Paré's most important works, both very rare, and in fine condition. “The Cinq livres contains all new material. It had been called by several serious writers Paré's chef d'oeuvre ... in it appears the first description of the fracture of..... More
Item #3697

Bath; Bath & London: printed by R. Cruttwell; and sold by Cadell and Davies; printed by R. Cruttwell & sold by Cadell and Davies, London, J. Collow, 1799; 1806. First edition, rare, of this work in which Parry was the first to make the connection between angina and coronary heart..... More
Item #5028

Paris: Mallet-Bachelier, 1862. First edition, very rare offprint, inscribed by Pasteur. “The longest and most important of Pasteur’s papers on spontaneous generation, describing the series of classic experiments with bent-necked and sealed flasks by which he proved conclusively that fermentation and putrefaction are not the products of spontaneous generation, but..... More
Item #5173

Paris: Chez Richard, Caille et Ravier, An IX [1801]. First edition of a landmark work on the treatment of the insane and mentally ill. It presented the textual foundation of psychiatry, stands as the first great publication of the nineteenth century in clinical medicine, and at the same time as..... More
Item #5631

Palermo: [Tipografia Matematica], 1906. First edition, extremely rare separately-paginated offprint, of this crucial paper in the development of the special theory of relativity, in which Poincaré showed that the Lorentz transformations form a group and that the Maxwell-Lorentz electromagnetic theory is invariant under this ‘Lorentz group’ (when augmented by space..... More
Item #4926

Venice: Aloysius Pavinus, 1709. First edition of Poleni’s first book, the second part of which is a description of an early ‘arithmetical machine,’ or primitive calculator. Babbage had a copy of this work in his library. “Poleni’s earliest paper was Miscellanea: de barometris et thermometris; de machinaquadam arithmetiea; de sectionibus..... More
Item #5800

[Washington: Mathematical Association of America], 1937. First edition, the rare offprint issue, of the paper in which Quine first presented his axiom system for set theory (now usually known as ‘NF’). “Although [Quine] is best known to a wider public for his philosophical writings, his most enduring and most concrete..... More
Item #2930

Leipzig: Jakob Bärwald, 1550. First edition, rare, of Riese’s last, and most comprehensive, arithmetic text. “Riese (1492-1559), while not the first Rechenmeister to publish an arithmetic book in Germany, was by far the most famous and influential. His works went through at least one hundred editions and were used in..... More
Item #5199

Paris: Didot jeune and Knapen & Delaguette, 1772. First edition, a magnificent and very rare large paper copy (both larger and printed on thicker paper than the octavo issue), of one of the fundamental works of modern crystallography; it appeared 12 years before Haüy’s Essai d’une Théorie sur la Structure..... More
Item #5371

Nuremberg: Johann Joseph Fleischmann, [1753]-1758. First edition of one of the most beautiful works devoted to frogs and toads, with a strikingly beautiful frontispiece after the author, preface by Alfred von Haller and plates depicting all the then known species of frogs and toads indigenous to the locality of Nuremberg..... More
Item #5376

Arosia [Västerås]: Eucharius Lauringer, 1653. First edition of “one of the great medical rarities” (Norman), documenting the discovery of the lymphatic system; this is possibly the only copy in private hands. “Inspired by Harvey’s De motu cordis, anatomists in the second half of the seventeenth century were drawn to the..... More
Item #5101

Bologna: Heirs of Giovanni Rossi, 1598. First edition, first issue, of this sumptuous work, presented by the author in its year of publication and of his own death. This is “one of the great rarities of early zootomical literature” (Cole, p. 90), with illustrations considered comparable to those in Vesalius’..... More
Item #5395