Justin Croft : Antiquarian Books

AIGNAN, [François-Nicolas.] ~ Le prestre medecin, ou discours physique sur l'établissement de la medecine. Avec un traité du caffé et du thé de France, selon le systeme d'Hippocrate...

Paris: Laurent d'Houry, 1696.

First edition. Aignan was a royal physician who had studied at the University of Padua. This history of medicine is important for its later chapters on Arabic and French coffee, French tea and fermentation. It also considers quinine and its local substitutes with reference to Ramon Lull and Arnald de Villanova. Aignan cultivated barley and rye in Brittany, which he roasted to produce a "French coffee" a cheaper alternative to arabica beans. He also produced a medicinal tea made from various dried balm leaves. view more...

£1100.00

US$1645.37*

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ALDROVANDI, Ulisse. ~ De Piscibus Libri V. Et De Cetis Lib. Unus; Ioannes Cornelius Uterverius… collegit. Marc Antonivs Bernia in lucem restituit... cum indice copiosissimo.

Bologna: Nicoló Tebaldini, 1638.

Francis Willughby's copy of the fourth edition (first 1613). Ulisse Aldrovandi's unprecedented survey of the fish species was conceived as part of the author's extraordinarily ambitious project to build the first complete 'scientific' zoological encyclopedia. Only two of the parts, the Ornithology and De Animalibus Insectis, were published during his lifetime, whilst De Piscibus was edited by his pupils from his manuscripts. Aldrovandi's concern with actual observation and with descriptions from specimens, explicit in the building of his own museum of natural history, became compelling when the naturalist met Guillaume Rondelet in Rome, where the French physician was collecting specimens for his own work. The two spent days examining species in Rome's fish market, and the Italian naturalist started gathering material for what became one of the greatest collections of his time. As a scientist of the l6th century, Aldrovandi was necessarily dependent, for the parts related to exotic species, on the accounts of earlier or foreign naturalists, in particular Gesner, Salviati, Belon and Rondelet. Nevertheless, his study is the first complete ichthyological work which attempts to substitute, correct and integrate the received traditional literature with as much direct observation as possible, in the spirit of a new, modern scientific and experimental attitude. The scientific and demonstrative approach emerges particularly in the care and abundance of illustrative apparatus, which the author conceived as necessary complement to the text rather than as an ornamental addition.Francis Willughby (1635-1672), one of the foremost naturalists to come before Linnaeus owned and marked this copy, evidently in the course of the preparation of his own De Historia Piscium (1686). The unique weight of Aldrovandi's influence on the major subsequent works on natural history, culminating in Linnaeus's monumental survey, is evident in this association copy. view more...

£3250.00

US$4861.33*

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[BAKER, Thomas]. ~ Traité de l'incertitude des sciences. Traduit de l'anglois [translated by Nicolas Berger].

Paris: Pierre Miquelin and Jacques Piget, 1714.

First edition in French of Baker's Reflections upon Learning (1699), a work designed to display the inadequacies of human knowledge and reason and to emphasize the ultimate need for belief in revelation. It proved controversial (provoking an angry response from geologist and physician John Woodward) and was widely reprinted. Bacon and Descartes are closely considered. view more...

£250.00

US$373.95*

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BASILIUS VALENTINUS. ~ Les douze clefs de philosophie... Traictant de la vraye medecine metalique. Plus l'Azoth, ou le moyen de faire l'or caché des philosophes. Traduction francoise.

Paris: Pierre Mo't, 1659.

A rare early edition of two of the most important alchemical texts by Basilius Valentinus, together with Bernardus' treatise on the philosopher's stone. First printed in Latin in 1599 Les douze clefs, together with Azoth, first appeared in French in 1624, translated by David Laigneau and published together. Traicté de la nature de l'oeuf des philosophes also first appeared in French that year and was probably intended as an accompaniment. The 1659 edition is important for having been dedicated by the publisher to the English natural philosopher Kenelm Digby, then resident in Paris studying Paracelsian chemistry and expounding the efficacy of his "powder of sympathy", a variant of the Paracelsian "weapon salve". Our copy bears Digby's arms in early (though not demonstrably contemporary) manuscript on a label pasted to the verso of the title. Some copies, though by no means all, of Les Douze Clefs contain an engraved suite of "keys". Ours, like the copy described by Ferguson, appears never to have had them and one suspects the existence of a preliminary issue before the keys were prepared. view more...

£3000.00

US$4487.39*

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BERKELEY, George. ~ Recherches sur les vertus de l'eau de goudron, où l'on joint des Réfléctions Philosophiques sur diverses autres sujets... Avec deux Lettres de l'Auteur...

Amsterdam: Pierre Mortier, 1745.

FIRST EDITION IN FRENCH OF BERKELEY'S LAST WORK, Siris, a chain of philosophical reflections and enquiries concerning the virtues of tar-water (1744) and of his two letters on the subject to Thomas Prior. At the time of its publication, Siris was the most popular of the author's many works. Berkeley had observed the use of tar-water among the native Americans and came to regard it as a panacaea in medicine, setting up an apparatus for its manufacture. "He recommends it not only in fevers, diseases of the lungs, cancers, scrofula, throat diseases, apoplexies, chronic disorders of all kinds, but also as a general drink for infants. It strengthens their bodies and sharpens their intellects. It is good for cattle... It is good for all climates, land and sea, for rich and poor, high and low livers, and he had himself drunk a gallon of it in a few hours" (DNB).The Siris is, however, more than just a medical work and the consideration of tar-water led Berkeley into a lengthy chain of reflections on the principles of the universe and of divine providence. view more...

£475.00

US$710.50*

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BERTHOLLET, Claude Louis. ~ Elements of the art of dyeing... translated from the French by William Hamilton...

London: by Stephen Couchman, and sold by J. Johnson, 1791.

First edition in English, very scarce, of Berthollet's important scientific contribution to the burgeoning European textile industry. Having collaborated with Lavoisier on the latter's pioneering chemical nomenclature and presented some seventeen memoirs to the Academy, the author was already an influential chemist when appointed inspector of dye works and director of the Manufacture Nationale des Gobelins in 1784. The Gobelins had their origins in the workshops of Flemish weavers brought to Paris by Henri IV in 1602 and were formally established by Colbert in 1667 as the "Royal Manufactury of Furnishings to the Crown". They became the pre-eminent centre for tapestry weaving in EuropeIn the Éléments de l'art de la teinture Berthollet "endeavored to place the ancient craft of dyeing on a scientific basis by a systematic discussion of its procedures, coupled with an attempt to find an adequate set of theoretical principles to explain the chemical actions involved. His explanation was that, depending on the variable physical conditions of temperature, quantity of solvent employed, and so forth, when a cloth was dyed the reciprocal affinities of the particles of the dye, the mordants, and the cloth itself were responsible for the kind and quality of dyeing. The colors produced were due to the oxidation of the mordant by the atmosphere" (DSB).The British edition appeared in the same year as the French, reflecting the market for such a treatise in a country where textile production was becoming one of the most important national industries. A second British edition appeared at Edinburgh the following year and several reprints appeared in the nineteenth century, presumably a measure of the popularity and utility of this scientific manual of dyeing in the British industrial revolution. view more...

£1300.00

US$1944.53*

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BEVERWYCK, Jan van. ~ De calculo renum & vesicae liber singularis. Cum epistolis & consultationibus magnorum virorum.

Leyden: Elzevir Press, 1638.

First edition of this famous work in urology, one of the earliest medical books to accept William Harvey's account of the circulation of the blood. Beverwyck was a Dutch physician and a relative of Vesalius. He sent a copy of this work to Harvey with a letter praising him for his work on circulation, saying "As everyone here wonderingly admires this doctrine, so I too embrace it both both arms in the little book which I send 'On the calculus of the kidneys and the bladder'". Harvey replied at length, praising the work with the punning passage: "Pleasing me, learned and elegant, and truly original, your De calculo renum et vesicae, in which you have laid a firm and solid foundation for your name and fame; go on to build further day by day, and erect a splendid monument of your genius. I will, not unwillingly, add my stone..." He went on to provide a detailed and approving critique of Beverwyk's work on the operation of the kidneys. view more...

£800.00

US$1196.64*

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BIENVILLE, D. T. de. ~ La nymphomanie, ou, Traité de la fureur utérine, dans lequel on explique avec autant de clarté que de méthode, les commencemens & les progrès de cette cruelle maladie, dont on développe les différentes causes; ensuite on propose lesmoyens de conduite dans les diverses périodes, & les spécifiques les plus éprouvés pour la curation.

Londres [Paris?], 1789.

The first full-length study of excessive female sexual desire, then considered both a medical and moral complaint. Nymphomanie was first published in 1771 and became something of a best-seller, running to several editions before the century's end. It was translated and printed in England in 1775. The "Londres" imprint of our French edition is certainly false. Among the causes of nymphomania, Bienville identifies eating rich food, consuming too much chocolate, dwelling on impure thoughts, reading novels, or performing "secret pollutions". view more...

£250.00

US$373.95*

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BLAEU, Willem. ~ Institutio astronomica de usu globorum & sphaerarum caelestium ac terrestrium: duabas partibus adornata, una, secundum hypothesin Ptolemai, per terram quiescentem. Altera, juxta mentem N. Copernici, per terram mobilem [translated by Martinus Hortenisus].

Amsterdam: Joannem Blaeu, 1655.

Blaeu's classic treatise on the use of the globes, armilary spheres and sundials, divided into sections considering the earth-centered Ptolemaic system of cosmography and the sun-centered Copernican system. It was first published in Dutch in 1634, soon followed by a Latin edition (also 1634), and then by a number of later seventeenth-century impressions.Our copy is in an interesting contemporary binding, with covers bearing thistle tools as cornerpieces, suggesting an early Scottish provenance, though without any further marks of ownership. view more...

£1000.00

US$1495.80*

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(BREAD). [House of Commons Report]. ~ Report from the Committee in laws relating to the manufacture, sale, and assize of bread. [Communicated by the Commons to the Lords.] Ordered to be printed 6th July 1815.

[London], 1815.

First editions of two detailed reports on the flour and baking trade, with detailed interviews conducted with dealers and bakers in town and country and statistical appendices. view more...

£250.00

US$373.95*

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BURDON, William, Captain. ~ Le marechal de poche d'un cavalier, qui enseigne, comment se servir de son cheval en voyage et les remedes qui conviennent dans les maladies et accedents en route... traduit de l'Anglois par M. S. M. Officier Suisse.

La Haye: C. de Rogissart & Soeurs, 1737.

First edition in French, rare, of one the the most popular eighteenth century works of equestrian medicine: The Gentleman's pocket-farrrier. First printed in 1730, it was reprinted numerous times in the eighteenth century in England and translated for use on the continent. There were several French editions but the first is rare. view more...

£925.00

US$1383.61*

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CARUS, Carl Gustav. ~ Vorlesungen über Psychologie, gehalten im Winter 1829/30 zu Dresden...

Leipzig: Gerhard Fleischer for Adolf Frohberger, 1831.

First edition of one of Carus's pioneering works in the emerging science of psychology. The author's major contribution was in exploring the psychology of the unconscious and he is considered the precursor of Jung (who acknowleged his debt to Carus) in this field. The author was a prolific figure who wrote on many aspects of psychology, medicine and philosophy. He was an accomplished landscape artist in the Romantic tradition and had studied under Caspar David Friedrich. He was also a friend of Nietzsche, Humboldt and Goethe.The Vorlesungen über Psychologie is especially notable for its wide frame of reference outside the discipline of medicine. Many of Carus's examples are drawn from literature, with a special emphasis on the works of Shakespeare: in the course of his argument he refers variously to Hamlet, Macbeth, Henry IV, Romeo and Juliet and Othello. view more...

£225.00

US$336.55*

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CHAMPIER, Symphorien. ~ Campus Elysius Galliae amoenitate refertus: in quo sunt medicinæ compositæ, herbæ et plantæ virentes: in quo quicquid apud Indos, Arabes, et Poenos reperitur, apud Gallos reperiri posse demonstratur.

Lyon: Melchior & Gaspard Trechsel, 1533.

First edition of two of the most influential and characteristic works by the renaissance physician and humanist, Symphorien Champier, colleague of Michael Servetus and François Rabelais at the Schools of Medicine at Lyons.In the Campus Elysius Galliae and Hortus Gallicus, Champier sought to reform the French pharmacopoeia and material medica, insisting that France had all the medical resources it needed in the form of herbs and medicinal plants without recourse to the exotic remedies espoused by the Arabic medical tradition. In doing this, Champier linked politics, culture, medicine and horticulture in praising the new cultural fertility of France (the Hortus Gallicus is dedicated to King Francis I). He cites various drugs known to be "pernicious and venomous" to Europeans, albeit perfectly suited to the inhabitants of other regions and other times (cf. Cooper, Inventing the Indigenous: local knowledge and natural history in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge, 2007). Champier's thesis derives from his deep antipathy to the Arabic medical tradition: several of his many earlier works sought to purify Galenic and Hippocratic medicine of Arabic influence partly in the belief that by stripping away latter Arabic influence the physician was drawing closer to the pure Classical origins of western medicine. It also expresses his persistent critique of the occultist tradition, so deeply ingrained in medical theory and practice at the opening of the Renaissance.Champier's Renaissance attitudes to medicine may not have been original but they were certainly influential. Lyons was one of the most important centres of the Renaissance in France (witness his prominent contemporaries) and he was very prolific, writing or editing at least 45 individual books. Many of his works are hard to classify and their very diversity is typical of the spirit of the age. He has been criticised for attempting to uncover the truth by simply piling authority upon authority, drawing from history, poetry, philosophy, magic and medicine without distinction. This approach may be alien to the modern mind, but Champier wrote at the very beginning of the scientific Renaissance and his works are highly characteristic of the humanist cast of mind. "He shared with many humanists the capacity for oratorical exuberance. So that when Scaliger called him 'insolens, tumens, turgens,' perhaps this spirit should be interpreted as an indication that he was full of the 'spirit of the Renaissance,' that rare gas which the historical laboratory has never yet succeeded in holding in solution" (Thorndike). The three works here have separate titles but were almost certainly issued together. The Campus Elysius contains several additional tracts: De sanguinis missione; Epistola J. Champerii avunculo suo Symphoriano (dated 25 June 1532); Speculum medici Christiani (dedicated to Champier's son Antoine) and De Theriacâ gallicâ. The Periarcha is dedicated to Charles de l'Estang, protonotaire of Saint-Siége. Each work is notable for the careful typography characteristic of Champier's printed works: he worked closely with his printers (Dumaitre, Histoire de la medecine et du livre medical, p. 195).Symphorien Champier, was born into a bourgeois family at Saint-Symphorien-sur-Croise, near Lyon and studied at the University of Paris before 1495, when he matriculated at the medical school of Montpellier, which granted him his doctorate in 1504. He taught liberal arts in Grenoble and took a doctorate in theology in 1502. In 1509 he was appointed physician to Antoine Duke of Lorraine, who brought him to Nancy. Champier followed the duke several time to Italy, where he was involved in the battles of Agnadello (1509) and Marignano (1515). During his stays in Italy he won recognition as an academic teacher from the University of Pavia. In 1519 he became an alderman in Lyon, and for the last twenty years of his life he was at the center of the cultural Renaissance of that city, while simultaneously promoting the study of medicine by helping to found the College of the Holy Trinity and sponsoring translations of, and writing commentaries on, the works of Hippocrates and Galen. view more...

£7500.00

US$11218.46*

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CHARLETON, Walter. ~ Oeconomia animalis, novis in medicina hypothesibus superstructa, & mechanicè explicata...

London: Roger Daniel and John Redmayne, 1659.

First edition in Latin (issued simultaneously in English) of this important work in the history of physiology. "In 1659 Charleton published a mechanistic account of physiology in Latin (Oeconomia animalis) and English (Natural History of Nutrition, Life, and Voluntary Motion), which included the suggestion that there was no increase in volume when a muscle contracted. Charleton was here rejecting the Cartesian account which attributed muscle shortening to its inflation by animal spirit. Charleton's assessment was confirmed experimentally by Jonathan Goddard in 1669" (Henry in Oxford DNB). view more...

£1200.00

US$1794.95*

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COMBALUSIER, François de Paule. ~ Pneumato-Pathologia seu tractatus de flatulentis humani corporis affectibus...

Paris: Joannes de Bure, 1747.

First edition of this Parisian physician's first book, a treatise on the causes of flatulence. It was translated into French in an edition of 1754. view more...

£275.00

US$411.34*

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[DIGBY, Kenelm.] DIONIS, Charles. ~ Dissertation sur le taenia, ou ver-plat, dans laquelle on prouve que ce ver n'est pas solitaire. Avec une lettre sur la poudre de sympathie, propre contre le rhumatisme simple ou gouteux.

Paris: P. G. Le Mercier, 1749.

First edition. While Dionis's consideration of the tape worm is fascinating enough (with its refutation of the theories of Nicolas Andry de Boisregard) the work is principally interesting for its larger part: Dionis's edition of Sir Kenelm Digby's account of the "Powder of Symapthy", an alchemical preparation purported to cure wounds at a distance. Made from dried green vitriol, this was a variant of the well-known Paracelsian 'weapon salve' which cured wounds by being applied, not to the patient, but to the offending weapon. It is a measure of the endurance of belief in this cure that Dionis entered into a contemporary dispute concerning its use and provides a recipe for it. Pp. 65-266 here are occupied by Dionis's introduction and by Digby's text, first published in 1658. view more...

£400.00

US$598.32*

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DOBSON, William. ~ Kunopædia. A practical essay on breaking or training the English spaniel or pointer. With instructions for atttaining the art of shooting flying. In which the latter is reduced to rule, and the former inculcated on principle.

London: printed by C. Whittingham, for the editor; and sold by J. Callow, and Whittingham and Arliss, 1814.

Rare first edition of the first book on the training of spaniels as working dogs. Smollett favourably reviewed the title on its publication in 1814: "This treatise will be found very entertaining to the veteran sportsman; and very useful to the novice. It is an admirable vade mecum to the cockney: it will enable him to distinguish a covey of partridges from a flight of tame ducks; and will so instruct him, that he may learn, how to shoot a farmer's pig, without wounding his own dog." (The Critical Review, or, Annals of Literature). view more...

£200.00

US$299.16*

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[EMERY, Antoine Joseph d'.] ~ Nouveau recueil de curiositez, les plus rares & admirables de tous les effects, que l'art & la nature sont capables de produire. Augmenté de plus de moitié, de merveilleux & beaux secrets gallands & autres, tres-utiles... de conserver leur santé...

Leyden: Pierre van de Aa, 1688.

A classic of the "Book of Secrets" genre. It had first appeared in 1674 with several further editions appearing in the following two decades. There are chapters of recipes, on wine, vinegars and conserving flowers, fruits etc.; the many other subjects include medical cures (a substantial section), fireworks, perfume and cosmetics. Copies of all editions are frequently mutilated or in poor condition (reflecting a utilitarian purpose).The attribution of the work remains problematical and it is occasionally catalogued under the authorship of the chemist Nicolas Lémery. view more...

£800.00

US$1196.64*

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FERRIAR, John. ~ An essay towards a theory of apparitions.

London: Cadell and Davies, 1813.

First edition. The physician John Ferriar was among the first to argue that ghostly apparitions should be understood as psychological rather than supernatural phenomena and should be investigated therefore by scholars of the brain. His theme was human insanity, both temporary and permanent, and he provides numerous examples of 'apparitions' from his own medical experience together with influential accounts of the characters of literary creations who were touched by madness, including Hamlet and Don Quixote. Ferriar was a Scot by birth but practiced in Manchester where he became acquainted with the important and radical circle associated with the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society. He worked on theories of the 'vital principles' of life (a notion which became central to Romantic preoccupations) and published his important Essay on the Medical Properties of the Digitalis Purpurea, or Foxglove in 1799. view more...

£350.00

US$523.53*

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(FOOD. MANUSCRIPT ACCOUNT BOOK.) [CIEZA, Andres de.] ~ [Account book for the kitchen of the Hospital de Nuestra Señora de la Buena Dicha, Madrid.]

[Madrid, 1674-1675.]

A superbly presented manuscript account book prepared by the clerk of one of Madrid's early hospitals for the poor and destitute. It comprises a full record of daily expenditure for the kitchen of the hospital over two years. Each day contains roughly fifteen entries for staple foods used in preparation of meals for the inmates, mainly for bread, meat, fowl, raisins, wine (red and white) and oil. Other entries are for fuel for cooking, herbs and spices (aniseed and parsley), bran, fish (occasional and seasonal), salads and fruit (also seasonal). Each day is divided into two sections: the first, untitled, represents general expenditure, the second, title "cena" evidently for dinner alone. Each expenditure is noted with amounts probably in maraved' and the totals for each day and week are given. Monthly totals are scrupulously prepared and presented at the end of each year's accounts and provide an interesting index of the fluctuation of expenditure across the seasons. It would be useful (and straightforward) to examine whether these related to seasonal price fluctuations or to some external factor such as the changing number of inmates. The accounts include the occasional purchase of quires of paper, presumably for accounts such as this.Each week at the hospital appears to have been presided over by a "semanero" whose names appear in turn beside the accounts for Sunday. Sundays appear to have witnessed the greatest expenditure, with notably larger amounts spent on the purchase of meat.The hospital was founded in the calle de Silva in 1594 alongside the church of Nuestra Señora de la Buena Dicha and was in the care of the Hermandad de la Buena Dicha. Its twelve rooms catered for the local destitute of the parish of S. Martin. view more...

£5500.00

US$8226.87*

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[FOUQUET, Charles Louis Auguste de,] Duc de Belle-Isle [and Louis-Georges-Erasme CONTADES, marquis de]. ~ Lettres du Marechal Duc de Belleisle au Marachel de Contades; avec des extraits de quelques-unes de celles de ce dernier; trouvées parmi les papiers, aprés la Bataille de Minden. Suivant la copie de Londres, imprimée sur les originaux, par autorité du gouvernement de la Grande Bretagne.

The Hague: Pierre de Hondt, 1759.

One of several editions of 1759, professedly "suivant la copie de Londres" issued in both English and French; other editions rapidly appeared in Amsterdam, Paris, and The Hague.The Battle of Minden was an important victory for British, Hanoverian, Hessian and Prussian troops against the French and Saxons during the Seven Years War. The title appears to have been first published by order of the British government, who presumably seized upon the letters, which number French casualties and deaths at 11,000, as an important propaganda tool. view more...

£150.00

US$224.37*

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(FRANKLIN INSTITUTE). JONES, Thomas P., editor. ~ The Franklin Journal, and American Mechanics' Magazine; devoted to the useful arts, internal improvements, and general science. Under the patronage of the Franklin Institute of the State of Pennsylvania. Vol 1, [3-6 and New Series Vols. 4-6]

Philadelphia: Jesper Harding for Judah Dobson [vol. 5 onwards by Harding for the Franklin Institute and Pishey Thompson in Washington City, G. &. C. Carvill in New York and Monroe & Francis in Boston,] 1826-1830.

Eight early volumes (wanting vol. 2 in first series and first volume of new series). An important record of innovations in British and American science and engineering, including railroads, canals, steam-engines, arts and manufactures, with excellent illustrations, including several of the earliest steam engines in Britain and America. view more...

£800.00

US$1196.64*

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FREUD, Sigm[und]. ~ Die Traumdeutung.

Leipzig and Vienna: Franz Deuticke, 1900 [but 1899].

First edition of Freud's "The Interpretation of Dreams". "This is unquestionably Freud's greatest single work. It contains all the basic components of psychoanalytic theory and practice: the erotic nature of dreams, the 'Oedipus complex', the libido, and the rest; all related to the background of the 'unconscious', later to be called the 'sub-conscious'".The manuscript of Die Traumdeutung was finished by 11 September 1899; Freud sent a copy to his close associate Wihelm Fleiss which was inscribed with the date 24 October 1899 (cf. Norman F33, Fleiss's copy). According to Jones, the work was "actually published on November 4, 1899, but the publisher chose to put the date 1900 on the title page" (Jones, Sigmund Freud: Life and Work, I, p.395). The first edition was of 600 copies. view more...

£12000.00

US$17949.54*

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FULLER, Francis. ~ Medicina gymnastica: or, a treatise concerning the power of exercise, with respect to the animal oeconomy; and the great necessity of it in the cure of several distempers... The second edition, with additions.

London: for Robert Knaplock, 1705.

Second edition, printed in the same year as the first, of this very succesful treatise on the use of excercise in the treatment of illness. Fuller wrote from first-hand experience, having cured himself of severe hypochondriasis through riding and fresh air. He devotes an entire chapter to the benefits of riding. A third edition appeared in 1707, a fifth in 1718, a sixth in 1728, and a ninth and last in 1777. view more...

£375.00

US$560.92*

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GATTEY, François. ~ Éléments du nouveau systême métrique, suivis des tables de rapports des anciennes mesures agraires avec les nouvelles...

Paris: Bailly and Rondonneau, 'An X' [1801].

First edition of an important practical guide to the new metric system, designed to counteract the persistence of local customary measurements in the regions of France and containing numerous tables for conversion from the old measures to the new. François Gattey was, with Legendre, one of the members of the convention established in 1795 to enact the definitive adoption of the metric system."One of the most significant results of the French Revolution was the establishment of the metric system of weights and measures....On June 19, 1791, a committee of 12 mathematicians, geodesists, and physicists met with Louis XVI, who gave his formal approval. The next day, the king attempted to escape from France, was arrested, returned to Paris, and was imprisoned; a year later, from his cell, he issued the proclamation that directed two engineers, Jean Delambre and Pierre Méchain, to perform the operations necessary to determine the length of the metre. The intervening time had been spent by the scientists and engineers in preliminary research; Delambre and Méchain now set to work to measure the distance on the meridian from Barcelona, Spain, to Dunkirk in northern France. The survey proved arduous; civil and foreign war so hampered the operation that it was not completed for six years. While Delambre and Méchain were struggling in the field, administrative details were being worked out in Paris. In 1793 a provisional metre was constructed from geodetic data already available. In 1795 the firm decision was taken to enact adoption of the metric system for France. The new law defined the length, mass, and capacity standards and listed the prefixes for multiples and submultiples. With the formal presentation to the assembly of the standard metre, as determined by Delambre and Méchain, the metric system became a fact in June 1799. The motto adopted for the new system was 'For all people, for all time'" (Ency. Brit.). view more...

£250.00

US$373.95*

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HOFFMANN, Friedrich. ~ Vollständige Anweisung zu einer sichern, vernünftigen und in Erfahrung stehenden medicinischen Praxi Medica, auss Hrn. D. Friederich Hoffmanns... Scriptis und Manuscriptis mit großem Fleiß verfertigt, zu Berförderung des gemeinen bestens heraus gezogen und in Ordnung gebracht.

Ulm: Daniel B. Sohn, 1736.

Second edition (first 1724) of Hoffmann's "Complete Instruction for a safe, sensible and medically respected practice of medicine": a very extensive baroque medical compendium.Friedrich Hoffmann (1660-1742), a German physician, practiced and taught medicine, chemistry and physics in Halle from 1693. He studied and wrote on such varied topics as paediatrics, mineral waters and meteorology and introduced many new drugs into medical practice (such as a compound spirit of ether branded "Anodyne" and "Hoffmanns-Tropfen" still today known as a household remedy). Hoffmann was among the first to describe several diseases, including appendicitis and German measles, and to recognize the regulatory role of the nervous system.The work contains examinations of common ailments such as fever, infections, haemorrhageing, cramps, spasms and convulsions, consideration of the cerebral and nervous system, lymph and glands, female complaints and childhood illnesses. It also includes numerous medicinal recipes and cures. view more...

£900.00

US$1346.22*

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"HONORÉ" [Jean Claude Louis CHOUET]. ~ Abolition des guerres. La création de la navigation aérienne au moyen de ptéronaves.

Paris: chez l'auteur, 1889 [1890].

First edition, issue with a rare 1890 addendum. Honore's text is essentially a treatise on the possibilities of man-powered flight through his proposed construction of a 'pteronave' and its potential to bring peace and harmony to the world. However, in a complete about-turn, the remarkable 1890 addendum was added against a background of war-mongering in Europe and the recent alliance of Britain with Germany against France, its feverish headline urging: "L'heure des pteronaves est peut-être venue?... Il est urgent, pour la France, de songer à tous les moyens de défense". This early text on aerial flight opens with an introductory 'Préambule', which recounts his 1852 petition to the President of the Republic to construct "un Navire Aerien a vapeur" and his 1852 prediction that it would become possible to circumnavigate the world in just 15 days, ideas which at the time were considered sheer folly. The main text outlines in detail the engineering principles on which man-powered flight would operate, including mention of 'Les Hélicoptères' (p. 26) and its wider effects, optimistically predicting that it will "tuer la guerre pour l'avenir, au profit du bonheur de l'humanité". view more...

£700.00

US$1047.06*

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KNOTT, Johann Nepomuk. ~ Praktische Grundsätze des Acker, - Wiesen-, Futterkräuter- und Gartenbaues, der Viehzucht und aller übrigen Zweige der Landwirthschaft...

Munich: Johann Baptist Strobel, 1792.

First edition of this agricultural handbook. It contains an interesting bibliographical table listing no less than 75 printed agricultural works in German. view more...

£200.00

US$299.16*

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LETTSOM, John Coakley. ~ Histoire de l'origine de la médecine, par M. Coakley Lettsom... traduite de l'anglois par M. H***.

"Londres & se trouve à Paris, Rue des Cordiers, No. 4; et chez La Ve[uve] Hérissant; Théophile Barrois le jeune," 1787.

First edition in French, bearing an obviously false "Londres" imprint, of History of the origin of medicine (London, 1778). Lettsom, the physician and Quaker philanthropist was a prolific author on medical subjects and his name is especially associated with the foundation of the Medical Society of London (as a Quaker, he was excluded from the Royal College of Physicians). view more...

£225.00

US$336.55*

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LEWIS, William. ~ Expériences physiques et chymiques sur plusieurs matières relatives au Commerce & aux Arts: ouvrage traduit de l'Anglois de M. Lewis, de la Société Royale de Londres; Par M. De Puisieux...

Paris: chez Desaint, 1768-1769.

First continental edition of Lewis's Commercium philosophico-technicum (first published London 1763-6) a work of considerable value in the history of the industrial and applied arts. The author was a member of the Royal Society and a founder of the Society for the Improvement of Arts and Manufactures. Much of the first volume and part of the second is devoted to the extraction and working of gold and includes much detailed information on its smelting (with furnaces illustrated) and its application to the arts including the gilding of paper and bookbindings, together with a history of alchemy. In the later volumes he considers the manufacture of glass, the working and properties of platinum, and the use of colours in paints, dyes and inks. view more...

£500.00

US$747.90*

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LONGINUS, Caesar. ~ Trinum magicum, sive secretorum magicorum opus. Continens I. De magia naturali artificiosa et superstitiosa diquisitiones axiomaticas. II. Theatrum naturae praeter curam magneticam, & veterum sophorum sigilla & imagines magicas, etiam conclusiones physicas, elementales, coelestes & infernales exhibens. III. Oracula zoroastris, & mysteria mysticae philosophiae, Haebraeorum, Chaldaeorum, Aegyptiorum, Persarum, Orphicorum, & Pythagoricorum. Accrssere nonulla secreta secretorum & mirabilia mundi. Et tractatus de proprii cujusque nati daemonis inquisitione.

Frankfurt: Jacob Gothofred Seyler, 1673.

Probably from the collection of Isaac Newton: a collection of treatises on hermetic and magical philosophy. The volume contains no obvious marks of Newton's ownership (inscriptions in his hand, dog-earing etc) but it contains the shelf-marks and engraved bookplate of James Musgrave. It does not contain the Huggins bookplate and does not appear in the first listing of Newton's library made after his death for Huggins. However, in view of the subject matter it is quite likely to have been Newton's copy: since not all of his books came to have the Huggins plate and many books later proved to be Newton's were not listed in Huggins's inventory.The dispersal of Newton's library after his death was definitively recounted by John Harrison. Dying intestate, most of Newton's books were rapidly sold to John Huggins, Warden of the Fleet Prison and installed in the house of his third son, Charles Huggins at Chinnor Rectory. They later passed, with the house, by marriage to Dr James Musgrave who later moved (with his library) in 1778 to Barnsley Park in Gloucestershire. There they remained, largely undisturbed, before dispersal at auction in the early part of the twentieth-century.Books demonstrably from Newton's library have been recognised through a variety of means: notably the contemporary lists compiled of both the Huggins and Musgrave libraries, but also from the bookplates and shelf-marks they contain, and, occasionally from Newton's own annotations and trade-mark "dog-earing" of corners. Our little Longinus, in its early to mid-eighteenth century binding contains no obvious Newtonian markings and did not appear in the first listings listings of Newton's library made by Huggins and does not contain a Huggins bookplate. It does however contain two sets of Musgrave's markings (the Chinnor and Barnsley Park shelf-marks) plus Musgrave's distinctive bookplate.As Harrison points out, while Huggins' first list is the most useful of all the lists of Newton's books, it does have limitations, especially in relation to smaller books in octavo or duodecimo and volumes with multiple contents (tracts). A good number of books known to have been Newton's appear in the Musgrave list only but are missing from the Huggins list. While most larger books were fully listed, smaller books were far less accurately recorded. For example, Harrison cites the entry "3 Dozen of small chymical books", among which a volume such as ours could easily have passed unrecognised. Furthermore, such an arcane hermetic text is highly unlikely to have been added to the library from elsewhere by either Huggins or Musgrave. Certainly Musgrave added books (perhaps as many as 130 volumes) but these tended to be on more general non-scientific subjects. "The great majority of the doubtful books are theological (particularly sermons), and the rest comprise a few classical texts, works on modern history and biography, and works of English literature, together with a reference book or two" (Harrison p. 46). On the other hand, it is precisely the sort of book Newton had been reading avidly between c. 1670-90 (see Brewster, Newton Handbook, 11).The binding of the book is of interest, dating from the eighteenth rather than the seventeenth century. If we are correct in suggesting that the book had its origins among Newton's books then a rebinding must have taken place under the instruction of Musgrave while still at his house at Chinnor (the book's pastedown bears a Chinnor marking). It is known that Musgrave did oversee a degree of conservation and rebinding, especially among the flimsier tract volumes, though the style of our binding is quite different to these. The Longinus has not only been rebound, but has had its rather frayed title carefully repaired by backing on a blank leaf (not watermarked).In sum, the Musgrave markings and the subject matter strongly suggest Newton's earlier ownership, though, on present evidence, this cannot be definitively proved. A work was first published with this title in 1609, and again, in a form closer to our text in 1614. Thereafter it appeard in numerous editions throughout the seventeenth century. The first part considers the different varieties of magic with an added section on the medicinal and magical properties of plants, minerals and animals,;the second is a treatise on cures reputedly effected at a distance by means of the the "weapon salve" (unguento armaro); the third contains the oracles of Zoroaster in verse, and the mystic philosophy of the Hebrews, Chaldeans, Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Orphics and Pythagoreans in prose; and the final part, possibly added for this edition concerns the nature of the devil. view more...

£4000.00

US$5983.18*

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[LOUIS, Antoine.] ~ [Thesis.] D.O.M. Positiones anatomicae et chirurgicae. Ex Anatomia.

[Paris: Delaguette, 1749.]

First and only edition. The name of Louis Antoine will always be associated with the invention of the guillotine as a 'humane' method of execution in Revolutionary France: indeed the apparatus was initially named the 'louison' or 'louisette' after Dr. Louis. While properly the invention of Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, the beheading device was championed by the then secretary of the Academy of Surgeons and the construction of the first prototypes was carried out under his supervision.It is perhaps appropriate that the present short thesis submitted for admission to l'École royale de chirurgie over 40 years previously should have been a consideration of trauma to the head: though referring to direct blows to the head rather than decapitation. The thesis occupies an important place in the history of the surgical profession in France, not so much for its content, but for the fact that Louis chose to submit it in Latin in place of the more usual verancular. In so doing Louis was honoured with the title "Ma'tre de chirurgie" in recognition of the fact that he, and future surgeons, were to recognised as liberally educated scholars rather than mere practitioners. This step was to place the surgeon on a par with the physician in French medical heirarchies. view more...

£400.00

US$598.32*

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(MEDICAL HANDKERCHIEF). [BUQUET, A., engraver.] ~ Le médecin dans la poche.

Rouen: E. Renault, [n.d. but c. 1840-70.]

An unusual illustrated handkerchief by Renault on the theme of public health. The large central scene depicts a fairground quack pulling teeth and dispensing bottles of medicine (accompanied by a performing dog) while the 24 surrounding scenes present medical advice on the subject of a variety of common ailments. There are treatments for cuts and bruises, concussion, sea-sickness, coal asphyxiation, gout, stings, splinters and so on. At three of the four corners is a brief description of the use of medical syrops, tisanes, quinine and absinthe, with specific preparations recommended.The illustrated handkerchief was a speciality of Rouen, with the firm of Renault producing numerous series, with educational, commemorative or comic subjects. The engraved images, of which Buquet was the master recall contemporary comic paper illustrations. Le médecin dans la poche was evidently a popular line and was reprinted several times up to 1870. view more...

£600.00

US$897.48*

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(MEDICAL MANUSCRIPT.) (BARTHEZ, Joseph Paul). ~ Extraits du cours des vertus des Plantes, Par Mr. Barthez chancelier de l'université de medecine de l'année 1774.

[Montepelier: 1774 or slightly later.]

An extensive notebook on the medicinal virtues of plants, compiled by Joseph Marie Joachim Vigarous de Montagut from lectures given by the great physician Joseph Paul Barthez at the medical school at Montpelier. The lectures evidently comprised a very complete survey of the field and were arranged according to the Linnaean classification of plant taxonomy rather than a medical classification. Each plant is defined using Linnaean names and there follows a brief decription of its uses according a wide variety of previous writers. These include Cullen, Van Helmont, Boerhaave, Jussieu, Fernel, Gesner, Pringle, Fuller, Willis, Sydenham, Linnaeus and Floyer and Barthez's own opinion is then frequently recorded.Viagrous de Montagut evidently attended the Montpelier medical school from an early age. If he made his notes in or soon after they were delivered in 1774, then he must have been just 15 (having been born in 1759). 1774 was the year in which Barthez had been elevated to position of Chancellor at Montpelier. He had been born and educated at Montpelier, taking his doctor's degree in 1753, and then acting as a military physician before becoming joint editor of the Journal des savants and the Encyclopédie méthodique and later returning to Montpelier in 1759. He later became both physician to Louis XVI and an adviser to Napoloeon. He published several influential medical treatises and is remembered as a primary exponent of the theories of vitalism in explaining the nature of biological life.Barthez's autograph letter tipped in to this manuscript is of interest. Probably addressed to Vigarous himself, Barthez recalls having travelled with Vigarous' father as part of the "juri médical" and having recognised the many injustices he had suffered (quite probably in the aftermath of the Revolution). The letter seems to have been sent with a copy of one of Barthez's books. Vigarous published several works himself, including Cours élémentaire de maladies de femmes (1801). view more...

£1500.00

US$2243.69*

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MILN, Robert. ~ A course of physico-theological lectures upon the state of the world, from the Creation to the Deluge...

Carlisle: by J. Milliken and sold by R. Faulder in London, 1786.

First edition of an attempt to reconcile the geological evidence of Whitehurst, Deluc and others with scripture: published 8 years before the View of the Evidences of Christianity by William Paley, who appears among the subsribers here. Miln marshals numerous geological facts, together with local anecdotes and observations to argue for the entirely natural means chosen by the creator for the destruction of the antediluvian world and to explain fossil remains from an orthodox creationist perspective.The subscribers include not only Paley but also Joseph Priestley and William Cullen. The list is arranged alphabetically by town: Alnwick, Alston, Brampton, Cambridge, Carlisle, Cockermouth, Durham and so on, providing an interesting geographical cross-section of the potential readership. The pagination in ESTC gives an additional unnumbered leaf between p. xxiv and p.1 not present in our copy. This leaf bore half a page of additional subscribers and was in all likelihood never present in our copy. view more...

£475.00

US$710.50*

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MOUCHEZ, Ernest Barthélémy. ~ La photographie astronomique a l'Observatoire de Paris et la carte du ciel.

Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1887.

FIRST EDITION, PRESENTATION COPY, OF A PIONEERING WORK IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF LUNAR AND STELLAR PHOTOGRAPHY. Mouchez was director of the Paris Observatory and commissioned two young astronomers, Prosper and Paul Henry, to prepare a photographic star atlas. "Arago had embarked on a program of improving Lalande's catalog of 50,000 stars with the aid of new, more precise measurements. Mouchez published the part observed up to 1875. Most notably, however, he enlisted the support of Sir David Gill, director of the Cape Observatory, to bring about an international astronomical congress at Paris in 1887. It was there decided to produce photographically a large-scale general map of the heavens and to establish a catalog giving the position and brightness of all stars up to the eleventh magnitude. Two young astronomers at the Paris observatory, the brothers Prosper and Paul Henry, both of whom were also talented opticians, had just completed an astrograph and Mouchez had it adopted for this gigantic undertaking, which took more than fifty years" (DSB).The first photograph (the frontispiece) depicts the moon's surface around the crater Eratosthenes; the second is of the Hercules cluster of stars; the third is a time-lapse series of depicting Jupiter, showing the rotation of the red spot; the fourth shows the rings of Saturn and the bands of Jupiter.This copy is inscribed by Mouchez to General Brugers, the future military governor of Paris. view more...

£3000.00

US$4487.39*

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MOUSIN, Jean and Christophe CACHET, translator. ~ Pandora Bacchica furens, medicis armis oppugnata. H'c temulentiae ortus, & progressus ex antiquorum monumentis inuestigatur, Bacchi vis effrenis Aesculapij claua retunditur atque compescitur. Opus varietate curiosum, doctrina salutare...

Toul: Sebastien Philippe, 1614.

First edition in Latin of Mousin's Discourse de l'yvresse et yvrongnerie, which was first printed in 1612 (also by Philippe at Toul). Both Mousin and Cachet his translator were physicians to the Duke of Lorraine. This rare work is a remarkable and early work on the history and culture of drinking and excessive drinking from antiquity to the author's day. Written from both a medical and moral perspective it provides much detail on the consumption of wine. view more...

£2000.00

US$2991.59*

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NEILL, Hugh. ~ The practice in the Liverpool Ophthalmic Infirmary, in the year 1834; being the first special report...

[Liverpool: D. Marples & Co.] for W. Grapel in Liverpool and Longman, Rees, Orme, and Co. in London, 1835.

First edition. Though entitled "the first special report", no further issues of the series were produced. The work includes an interesting collection of cases of named individuals ("William Ablett, aged 9, at play, ran a fork through the Cornea of the right eye, and punctured the Lens... James Greenow, 20 years of age, of Little Woolton, had the stalk of a tobacco pipe thrust through the Cornea" etc) and gives a peculiarly detailed insight into this aspect of public health in the Victorian industrial city. Neill was an enthusiastic advocate of the use of strychnine in opthalmology. This copy of the Special Report evidently belonged to one of his doctors, who made several small notes at the end of his part in a few of the treatments described in the text. view more...

£250.00

US$373.95*

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(NEWTON). PEMBERTON, Henry. ~ Elémens de la philosophie newtonienne... traduit de l'Anglois [by Elias de Joncourt]..

Amsterdam and Leipzig: Arkstée & Merkus, 1755.

First edition in French of perhaps the mostly widely-read early work on Newton, the View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy (first published in England in 1728). Pemberton's explanation of Newton's thought for a lay audience is valuable for having been written from the point of view of a friend and contains a good number of anecdotes. Pemberton had been as close to Newton as any other scientist and had superintended the editing of the definitive third edition of the Principia mathematica. The View was read in part to the dying Newton. It is often cited as evidence that Newton did not need to see an apple drop to formulate his theory of gravitation: Pemberton tells us simply that the idea came to him while sitting alone in a garden. Though the English edition was very popular and is not now especially rare, the continental translations are very scarce indeed. They are, however, important. Newton's acceptance in Europe was famously slow and it is through works such as Pemberton's that his thought became more widely understood. In addition to the French translation by de Joncourt there is an earlier Italian translation of 1733. view more...

£875.00

US$1308.82*

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NICHOLSON, William. ~ The British Encyclopaedia, or dictionary of arts and sciences. Comprising an accurate and popular view of the present improved state of human knowledge...

London: by C. Whittingham, for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, J.Johnson, R. Baldwin, F. and C. Rivington [and numerous other in London], 1809.

First edition of the major scientific dictionary of the early nineteenth-century. It was nominally edited by Nicholson, but was mainly compiled by the dissenting scholar Jeremiah Joyce and published by a large 'conger' syndicate of London booksellers. It includes excellent accounts of new industrial technologies, notably the steam engine. view more...

£400.00

US$598.32*

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ROBINS, Benjamin. ~ New principles of gunnery: containing, the determination of the force of gun-powder, and an investigation of the difference in the resisting power of the air to swift and slow motions. By Benjamin Robins, F. R. S.

London: for J. Nourse, 1742.

First edition."New Principles of Gunnery transformed ballistics into a Newtonian science. Galileo's vacuum theory was the only practical theory before 1742, but only for low-velocity mortars as demonstrated in Bélidor's Le bombardier français (1731). Robins made it applicable for gunpowder weaponry in general. His key contribution was the invention and utilization of the ballistic pendulum. With Huygens's law of pendulum motion and Newton's law of linear momentum, he deduced the bullet's impact velocity from the subsequent swing angle. Robins then used the ballistic pendulum to verify his interior-ballistics theory, relying on Boyle's law, the thirty-ninth proposition from book one of the Principia, and the pneumatic chemistry techniques of Francis Hauksbee the elder and Stephen Hales. By applying Newton's second law of motion to velocity measurements at varying ranges, Robins also obtained the air-resistance force acting on musket balls. This revealed the significant limitations of Galileo's vacuum ballistics theory and of Newton's air-resistance function when approaching the speed of sound" (Steele in Oxford DNB).Robins was born of Quaker stock in Bath. He was initially self-educated but was later taught by the Newtonian editor Henry Pemberton and became a significant exponent of Newton's physics. He had been elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1727. His New principles of gunnery was widely-read and was translated into German by Euler and also into French. view more...

£950.00

US$1421.01*

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ROBINSON, Nicholas. ~ A new theory of physick and diseases, founded on the principles of the Newtonian philosophy. By Nicholas Robinson, M.D...

London: for C. Rivington, J. Lacy and J. Clark, 1725.

First edition. Robinson was born in Wales but gained his MD at Reims in 1718. He was also a protegé of Richard Mead to whom the present work is dedicated. Much of the work is practical (it includes several medical recipes at the end) but the theory is based on the "Newtonian" premise: "Is not the mechanism of the body conducted by the same laws that support the motions of the greater orbs of the universe?" view more...

£450.00

US$673.11*

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ROUSE, William. ~ The doctrine of chances, or the theory of gaming, made easy to every person acquainted with common arithmetic, so as to enable them to calculate the probabilities of events in lotteries, cards, horse racing, dice, &c. With tables on chance, never before published, which from mere inspection, will solve a great variety of questions.

London: printed by Gye & Balne for the author, published by Lackington, Allen & Co., [1814].

First edition of a key text in probability and games theory. view more...

£1500.00

US$2243.69*

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SANTORINI, Giovanni Domenico, (edited by Michael GIRARDI). ~ Anatomici summi septemdecim tabulae quae nunc primum edit atque explicat iisque alias addit de structura mammarum et de tunica testica vaginali....

Parma: ex Regia Typographia, 1775.

First edition of one of the finest anatomies of the eighteenth century. Santorini (1681-1737) "worked as both a practicing physician and teacher-anatomist in Venice and was known to be one of the most careful and fastidious anatomists of his period. This work, edited by Michael Girardi (1731-97) and issued . . . after Santorini's death, contains illustrations of many parts of the human body, including the organs of smell and hearing, the pharynx, breasts, heart, stomach, liver, intestines, pancreas, and bladder. Of the 21 plates in the book, 17 were by Santorini, and each plate is accompanied by a companion outline plate that is marked with reference letters. The book is one of the finest anatomies of the 18th century because of its excellent illustrations and comprehensive commentary" (Heirs of Hippocrates)."Santorini died before the completion of these anatomical plates which he intended to be his chef d'œuvre. This elegrantly printed volume is the only significant medical book printed by the celebrated Giambattista Bodoni for the Duke of Parma... All the twenty-one prints of the work are done in a light crayon effect which, however, does not impair the anatomic clarity of the prints, but even brings out well the differences in the tissues. Each plate is accompanied by an outline plate which is marked with reference letters. The seventeen plates by Santorini have a ruled margin at the top and on the side, like the Eustachian plates, but have no signatures of the artists. They were drawn by Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, who made the coppers for Tasso's Gierusalemme Liberata. A woman, Florentia Marcella, engraved Santorini's plates under Santorini's personal supervision. The work belongs to the best of its time., not only as regards the dissections and illustrations, but also as to the very elaborate commentary. The pictures deal with facial muscles, the base of the brain and other parts of the brain, the organs of smell and hearing, the pharynx, the breasts, the heart, the diaphragm with the beginning of the thoracic duct, the stomach, the liver, the intestines, the pancreas, the ileocaecal valve., the bladder, the muscles of the perineum, and the genitals. Covoli's pictures represent the breasts, the tunics of the testicle and a six months' foetus" (Choulant, pp. 263-64). Copies only rarely contain the portrait: it is lacking in the copies described in Norman, Heirs of Hippocrates and Choulant. view more...

£1800.00

US$2692.43*

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SCOT, Reginald. ~ The discoverie of witchcraft, wherein the lewde dealing of witches and witchmongers is notablie detected, the knaverie of conjurors, the impietie of inchantors, the follie of soothsaiers, the impudent falshood of cousenors, the infidelitie of atheists, the pestilent practises of pythonists, the curiositie of figurecasters, the vanitie of dreamers, the beggerlie art of alcumystrie, the abhomination of idolatrie, the horrible art of poisoning, the vertue and power of naturall magike, and all the conveiances of legierdemaine and juggling are deciphered: and many other things opened, which have long lien hidden, howbeit verie necessarie to be knowne. Heereunto is added a treatise upon the nature and substance of spirits and divels, &c...

[London : Henry Denham for William Brome], 1584.

First edition of the first systematic and rational account of the practice of witchcraft in England. view more...

£24000.00

US$35899.08*

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SENDIVOGIUS, Michael. ~ A new light of alchymy: taken out of the fountain of nature and manual experience, to which is added a treatise of sulphur. Written by Micheel Sandivogius. i.e. anagrammatically, divi leschi genus amo. Also nine books of the nature of things, written by Paracelsus, viz. Of the generations, growths, conservations, life, death, renewing, transmutation, separation, signatures of natural things. Also a chymical dictionary explaining hard places and words met withal in the writings of Paracelsus and other obscure authors. All which are faithfully translated out of the Latin into the English tongue, by J. F. MD.

London: A. Clark for Thomas Williams, 1674.

Sendivogius was regarded by contemporary alchemists as being the true possessor of the philosopher's stone, and in orthodox scientific terms his work is important for his observations on the components of air, leading to an argument that "contains the first idea of the existence of air" (DSB XII, 307).De lapide philosophorum was first printed at Prague in 1604 and thereafter became known as Novum lumen chymicum. The Tractatus de sulphure altero naturae principio, which frequently appeared with it (as here) first appeared at Cologne in 1616. This English translation by "J.F." (either John French or John Freke) appears with an English version of De rerum naturae, the classical Paracelsian text and an alchemical dictionary. It had been first printed in English in 1650, making our edition the second. view more...

£1650.00

US$2468.06*

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(SILK). ~ A few hints on the management of silk-worms in England, viewed as a study.

London and Brighton: Arthur Wallis [Brighton] for Wertheim and Macintosh in London, 1853.

First and only edition. The female author (she speaks of "herself" in the Preface) has a didcatic intention, hoping that her little study will bring the reader to greater appreciation of "the Giver of all Good". This little Brighton-printed pamphlet perfectly exemplifies the Victorian fascination with the life of insects as emblematic of the virtues of hard-work, productivity and thrift. Much of her text is paraphrased from Lardner's Cyclopaedia and Hooke; the hand-coloured plate is most attractive. view more...

£200.00

US$299.16*

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STUART, Robert. ~ Histoire descriptive de la machine a vapeur, traduite de l'Anglais de R. Stuart; précédée d'une introduction exposant la théorie des vapeurs; suivie de la description des perfectionnements faits en France, et des considérations générales sur l'emploi de ces machines.

Paris: Malher et Compagnie, 1827.

First edition in French of Stuart's pioneering early history of the steam engine, translated (with additional notes by the French editor) from the third English edition of 1825. The work describes the major inventions from Hero of Alexandria, through Caus, Branca, the Marquis of Worcester, Moreland, Papin, Newcomen, and Hulls, to Watt, Hornblower and Trevithick. The final 60 pages contain an appendix not found in the English editions designed to demonstrate the developments in steam engineering in France since 1815. Brunel is rightly claimed as a Frenchman. The title formed part of Malher et Compagnie's Bibliothéque industrielle and is very scarce. view more...

£400.00

US$598.32*

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THOMSON, John. ~ The universal calculator; or the merchant's, tradesman's, and family's assistant. Being an entire, new, and complete set of tables, adapted for dealers in every branch of trade, by wholesale or retail, and all families. Shewing, at one View, The Amount or Value of any Number or Quantity of Goods or Merchandise, from One to Ten Thousand, at all the various Prices, from One Farthing, in regular progression, to Thirty Shillings; in 280 different Tables. Also, At the foot of each Table is shown the Division of the Pound, Yard, &c. into the following Particulars, entirely new, and not to be found in any other Book, viz. For Dealers by Weight, such as Grocers, &c... For Dealers by Measure, such as Milliners, Haberdashers, &c... There are also added, Twenty-Seven Tables, Shewing the Exchange on Bills, Commission or Brokerage on Goods, &c. from 1/8 to 5 per Cent. and Tables, shewing the amount of any Salary, Income, Expence, &c. by the Day, Week, Month, or Year. By John Thomson, Accomptant in Edinburgh, Author of the Tables of Interest, and Tables for Calculating the Price of all kinds of Grain.

Edinburgh: [Murray & Cochran] for W. Creech and C. Elliot, Edinburgh; and C. Dilly, in the Poultry, London, 1784.

First edition of this very scarce set of Edinburgh merchant's tables. Thomson, styled "accomptant" in the title, also prepared various tables of interest and currency for tradesman. The book is dedicated "To the honourable the Master, Assistants, and other members of the Company of Mechants, of the City of Edinburgh". As was typical for similar works of essential reference printed across the border in England, the work bears Thomson's signature, guaranteeing them to be both correct and genuine. view more...

£750.00

US$1121.85*

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[TIPHAIGNE DE LA ROCHE, Charles-François.] ~ L'Amour Dévoilé, ou le Système des Simpathistes, où l'on explique l'origine de l'Amour, des Inclinations, des Simpathies, des Aversions, des Antipathies, etc.

[n.p. ?Low Countries], 1749.

First editions. Tiphaigine de la Roche's L'Amour Dévoilé is a notable attempt to explain love and sexual attraction in mechanistic terms. The author considers the role of 'la matière Sympathique' which he believed to be a type of vapour exhaled by both animals and humans, and its action upon the senses of a member of the oppositie sex. This rational approach to the subject prefigures modern research into pheromones. Pernetti, author of the moral romance Histoire de Favoride was a canon of the cathedral at Lyon and a prominent antiquary of that city. He was also a freemason and wrote a short treatise on that subject view more...

£495.00

US$740.42*

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WICKHAM, Louis and Paul DEGRAIS. ~ Le Radium son emploi dans le Traitement du Cancer des angiomes, chéloïdes, tuberculoses locales et d'autres affections... Avec 53 figures dans le texte.

Paris: J.-B. Baillière et fils, 1913.

First edition of this pioneering text in radiotherapy, issued as part of Les Actualités Médicales series, this copy inscribed by Paul Degrais to a leading French homeopath, Léon Vannier. Wickham, a French dermatologist and pioneer of radium therapy, began treating tumours and gynaecological conditions with radium in 1908. He and his younger colleague Degrais were among the first clinicians to treat human conditions with 'radiumtherapy' having obtained radium from the Curies. Wickham died in 1913, several months before his colleague Degrais inscribed this copy to Vannier. The work also appeared in an English translation printed in London in the same year. It was preceded by the larger work Radiumthérapie; instrumentation, technique, traitement des cancers, chéloïdes, naevi, lupus, prurits, névrodermites, eczémas, applications gynécologiques (Paris, 1909). view more...

£200.00

US$299.16*

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WILKINS, John. ~ Mathematicall magick. Or, The wonders that may be performed by mechanicall geometry. In two books. Concerning mechanicall powers. motions. Being one of the most easie, pleasant, usefull, (and yet most neglected) part of mathematicks. Not before treated of in this language By J.W. M.A.

London: by M[iles]. F[lesher]. for Sa. Gellibrand at the brasen Serpent in Pauls Church-yard, 1648.

Second edition, issued in the same year as the first with a new title-page. It is "the first text on mechanics available in the English language. It is divided into two parts "Archimedes or Mechanical Powers" and "Daedalus or Mechanical Motions"- the latter part describing various machines, including strange devices and possibilities, such as a land vehicle powered by wind, submarines, flying automata, clocks, magnetic perpetuum mobile, etc. His sources were Guidobaldo's Mechanicorum liber and Mersenne's Cogitata physico-mathematica... One may see Wilkins' work as a popular version of Mersenne's work" (Biblioteca Mechanica). Wilkins was a leading figure in the English scientific renaissance, being, at various times influential at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and in the Royal Society (of which he was president from 1660-1661). He is known also for his conjectures on extra-terrestrial life (The discovery of a world in the moone, 1638).Both the first and second editions bear the date 1648. view more...

£1500.00

US$2243.69*

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WILLUGHBY, Francis. ~ De Historia Piscium Libri Quatuor, Jussu & Sumptibus Societatis Regiae Londiniensis editi. In quibus non tantum De Piscibus in genere agitur, Sed & sepcies omnes, tum ab aliis traditae, tum novae & nondum editae bene multae, naturae ductum servante Methodo dispositae, accurate describuntur. Earumque effigies, quotquot haberi potuere, vel ad vivum delineatae, vel ad optima exemplaria impressae; Artifici manu elegantissime in Aes incisae, ad descriptiones illustrandas exhibentur. Cum Appendice Historias & Observationes in supplementum Operis collatas complectente. Totum Opus Recognovit, Coaptavit, Supplevit, Librum etiam primum & secundum integros adjecit Johannes Raius e Societate Regia.

Oxford: Sheldonian Theatre, 1686.

First edition of Willughby's monumental Historia piscium, a project designed to follow his celebrated Ornithologia (1676). Willughby (1635-1720), author of some of the most important contributions in natural history before those of Linnaeus, toured the Continent extensively with John Ray, collecting material for his research and observing specimens to be reproduced in his drawings. He died before publishing his studies on fish. The large editorial work was undertaken by Ray, the renowned naturalist who had carried out extensive experimental work in embryology and plant physiology, a member of the Royal Society of London since 1667. Ray brought his taxonomy system to bear on Willughby's descriptions. Although broadly based on Aristotle's classification, it relied on anatomical and functional features, and was the first system based on the notion of species in the distinction of diverse animals and plants.The exceptional collection of plates is known in two editorial states, one with engravings on both recto and verso of each leaf, the second engraved on recto only. This copy has 'state b' plates, and the title-page which is sometimes bound before the plates is here bound at the beginning. view more...

£4250.00

US$6357.13*

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Justin Croft : Rare & Fine Antiquarian Books - Specialist in antiquarian books, especially in the field of science and medicine

Science & Medicine