Paris: chez Henry Le Gras, au troisième pilier de la grand’ Salle du Palais, à L couronnée, 1649. First edition of Descartes’s important psychological treatise, one of his most influential works, and the last work published before his death in the following year. This is a fine copy in an..... More
Item #4125

Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1845. The Haskell F. Norman copy, presentation copy inscribed by the translator, of the first the first modern textbook of psychiatry. Norman 727. “Esquirol’s book, compiled from papers and articles published over the past two decades, summarized the experience gained over a lifetime of observation and..... More
Item #3258

First editions, all very rare, of four early works on animal motion and physiology by the outstanding Renaissance anatomist and surgeon and founder of embryology. They were issued separately from 1614 to 1618; after Fabrici’s death in 1619, the treatises were reissued together by Meglietti with a general title page..... More
Item #4467

Cologne: Arnold Birkmann, 1562. First edition, second issue, of the greatest Italian anatomical book of the sixteenth century (first published in 1561, see below).   “Rather than a complete study of the whole of anatomy, Falloppio, who was a pupil of Vesalius, designed this work as a critical commentary of..... More
Item #4023

Lyon: Antoine Vincent, [1556]. First edition, in an untouched contemporary binding and with a fine provenance, of this exceptionally rare work which “includes the first recorded description of an operation for strangulated hernia” (Garrison-Morton). This work is absent from many major medical collections, which regard the expanded second edition of..... More
Item #4021

Paris: Chez l'autheur, 1663. Rare first edition of this very important chemistry text, which went through some thirteen editions between 1663 and 1710. It is one of the earliest attempts to strip chemistry from its alchemical mysticism and to describe chemical preparations in an unambiguous manner. "The work is divided..... More
Item #3412

Leyden: Johann Maire, 1639. Third, but second complete, edition of the single most important and famous medical book ever published, containing Harvey’s discovery and experimental proof of the circulation of the blood, which created a revolution in physiology comparable to the Copernican revolution in astronomy. Harvey’s discovery was to become..... More
Item #3607

Rotterdam: Arnold Leers, 1648. First edition of the Exercitationes, one of two issues published simultaneously (see below), of this rare and important work, a defence of his theory of the circulation of the blood against the Parisian physician Jean Riolan the younger. It is here bound after the first Rotterdam..... More
Item #3630

Berlin: A. Förstner, 1851. First edition, an exceptionally fine copy in original printed wrappers, of this famous work which describes Helmholtz’s announcement of his invention of the ophthalmoscope, one of the most important clinical tools in medicine, which greatly improved the ability of ophthalmologists to diagnose eye disease and revolutionized..... More
Item #4855

Leipzig: Wolfgang Stöckel, 1501. An outstanding copy, in untouched contemporary binding from the collection of Jean Blondelet, of one of the earliest works with anatomical illustrations, “includes the first illustrations of the viscera in a printed book” (GM). “Hundt’s best-known work, Antropologia de hominis dignitate, natura et proprietatibus de elementis..... More
Item #4830

Washington: Carnegie Institution. First edition, the very rare offprint issue, of the first of the papers documenting McClintock’s discovery of ‘control elements,’ for which she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1983. “Between 1948 and 1951, McClintock carried out a series of sophisticated experiments with variegated maize..... More
Item #3910

[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