Inventum Novum ex Percussione Thoracis Humani ut signo abstrusos interni pectoris morbos detegendi.
95, [1] pp. 8vo, cont. vellum over boards (lower portion of spine neatly repaired at an early date, some occasional light browning and foxing as usual with this book). Vienna: J.T. Trattner, 1761.
First edition of the first book to suggest percussion of the chest as a diagnostic measure, “one of the greatest of all medical classics.”–Heirs of Hippocrates 954. “With the introduction of percussion of the chest, which offered a new and dependable method of diagnosing diseases of the heart and lungs in living persons, Leopold Auenbrugger made the first advance in physical diagnosis since the age of Hippocrates. The son of an innkeeper, Auenbrugger had learned as a boy how to establish the level of wine in a cask by thumping the barrel…Applying the same technique to the human chest, he noticed that different sounds — tympanic, dull, or obscure, were produced when there was underlying disease of the heart or lungs in the interior of the chest. He verified his diagnoses by experiments on cadavers and by postmortems.”–Grolier Club, One Hundred Books Famous in Medicine, 45. At first Auenbrugger’s discovery attracted little attention, but he lived to see Corvisart’s classic translation of the book in 1808, after which the value of percussion was universally recognized. Very good copy. This copy is of the second issue, with the errata on the final page. Bookplates of Piergiorgio Borio.
❧ Garrison-Morton 2672. Lilly, Notable Medical Books, p. 127.
Price: $13,500.00
Item ID: 3749
