London: John Murray, 1859. First edition, presentation copy, of “the most influential scientific work of the nineteenth century” (Horblit), “the most important biological work ever written” (Freeman), and “a turning point, not only in the history of science, but in the history of ideas in general” (DSB). “Darwin not only..... More
Item #5894

Padua: Lorenzo Pasquati, 1603. First edition, very rare first separate issue (see below), “of the first systematic study of the structure, distribution and position of the venous valves. Although the valves of the veins had been observed previously by G.B. Canano and Amato Lusitano, Fabrici studied them anew on the..... More
Item #3909

Paris: Jean Mariette, 1728. First edition of Fauchard’s pioneering work in the field of modern dentistry. “Before Fauchard’s time the profession of dentistry was truly a ‘mystery: for its practitioners had steadfastly refrained from publishing details of their technique and equipment. Fauchard summarized in his pages with numerous illustrations all..... More
Item #5119

Lyon: Thibauld Payan, 1561. Second edition, almost four times the length of the first (1556), with 25 new illustrations including 22 instruments and three full skeletons. This is Franco’s major work, very rare, a copy in an untouched contemporary binding and with a fine provenance. “Pierre Franco, creator of suprapubic..... More
Item #4490

London: William du Gard for Laurence Sadler and Robert Beaumont, 1650. First edition, co-author’s copy, of the first full clinical description of rickets, then thought to have appeared only recently in England, and the first description of infantile scurvy. “In 1645 the Royal College of Physicians assigned to Glisson, Bate..... More
Item #5420

Berlin: Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1882-1883. First edition, extremely rare author’s presentation offprints, of all three parts of one of the founding paper of chemical thermodynamics, along with Josiah Willard Gibbs’s 1876 paper ‘On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances.’ In these papers, Helmholtz introduced the concept of ‘free energy’ and proved..... More
Item #5192

[1813-1850]. An extraordinary collection of works by Sir John Herschel (1792-1871), the outstanding astronomer and physical scientist of his day, assembled for presentation to his son William James Herschel (not to be confused with John’s father, the astronomer Frederick William). The collection includes offprints of Herschel’s three most important publications..... More
Item #4321

Paris: Maradan, Seconde Année de la République, [1794]. First edition of the first of Lamarck’s full-length treatise on chemistry a copy with extensive near-contemporary annotations. “With the publication of the Recherches, Larmarck brought together the various strands of his work in physics and chemistry, and his views on the differences..... More
Item #5660

Paris: chez l’Auteur, 1675. First edition, very rare, of the author’s famous chemical textbook. “Lemery’s highly successful Cours de chymie, which served as the textbook to his popular courses on chemistry, brought French chemical teaching out of the quasi-mystical Paracelsian tradition into the mainstream of Cartesian and atomistic natural philosophy..... More
Item #5402

London: John Murray, 1830-1832-1833. First edition of this “classic by ‘the father of modern geology’” (Grolier/Horblit), famous for “establishing a new era in geology” (DSB), presenting the doctrine of uniformitarianism, namely, that the processes of the past must be judged by those of the present. “One of the key works..... More
Item #5181

Berlin (i.e., Paris): np, 1754. First edition in French, the earliest obtainable, and very rare, of Maupertuis’ remarkable original work on the nature of heredity and evolution, which marks him out, in the words of evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr (The Growth of Biological Thought, p. 328), as “one of the..... More
Item #5233

Venice: Remondini, 1761. First edition, first issue, a very fine copy, of “one of the most important [works] in the history of medicine” (Garrison & Morton). “After Antonio Benivieni (1443-1502), Giovanni Battista Morgagni is considered the founder of pathological anatomy. His ‘De sedibus’, regarded as one of the most important..... More
Item #5608

Paris: Antoine Boudet, 1746. First edition, rare on the market, of “the first specialized book on dental prosthetics” (G & M), and perhaps the first contribution to what would later be called “cosmetic dentistry.” “Mouton, in 1746, … gave to the light a monograph, the first extant, on mechanical dentistry..... More
Item #5166