Four brush & black ink drawings in the text. 21 folding leaves. 8vo (237 x 165 mm.), orig. decorated semi-stiff wrappers, manuscript title on label on upper cover, new stitching. [Japan]: on final leaf (in trans.): “Copied May 1814 by Toba.”

An attractive manuscript copy of the first Japanese text on shiitake cultivation, written in 1796; it has remained unpublished. The beginning of our manuscript is entitled “Kyoshin roku” [“Amazing Shiitake Mushroom Knowledge”]. This is followed by “Onkosai mitsuki” [“Sato’s Tips on Honey Production”] and “Satsuma imo kono sho narabini tsukuri yo no den” [“On the Health Benefits & Cultivation... More

Many fine full-page woodcut illus. 46; 59 folding leaves. 8vo, orig. yellow wrappers (wrappers a little soiled), orig. woodblock title-slips on upper covers (labels a little soiled), new stitching. Kyoto, Osaka, & Edo: 1808.

First edition of one of the three most important Japanese works on orthopedic medicine. The book is based on Chinese medical science, most notably the Sheng ji zong lu 聖濟總錄, written in the 11th century, and the Yi zong jin jian 醫宗金鑑 by Qian Wu (active 1736-43), who also wrote the famous Yuzuan Yizong Jinjian 御纂醫宗金鑑 [Imperially Commissioned Golden Mirror of Medical Learning], published in 1742... More

18 folding leaves. 8vo (246 x 167 mm.), orig. wrappers, orig. stitching. [Japan]: Meiji.

This appears to be the text of the notes on ginseng recorded by a disciple of Ranzan Ono. We know that Ono’s final writings were on this herb, composed on his deathbed.

Ranzan Ono (1729-1810), was considered the “Linnaeus of Japan.” He started a school of botanical pharmacology in Kyoto, which, over the years, graduated more than 1000 students. During his long life, Ono travelled throughout Japan, gathering plant specimens and recording botanical remedies. He was familiar with both Chinese and Western texts on herbal medicines... More

Ca. 52 leaves. 8vo (leaves of various sizes but averaging 285 x 203 mm.), written on paper with pre-printed columns, stitched together. Osaka: 1872-75.

The Osaka Medical School, today part of Osaka University and one of the finest medical schools in Japan, traces its origins and traditions to the Tekijuku, an academy founded by Koan Ogata (1810-63), which based its teaching on Western learning, mostly from the Dutch. The newly created Meiji government established the Osaka Medical School in 1869, with the help of Ogata’s son Koreyoshi and the Dutch doctor Antonius Franciscus Bauduin (1822-85). This was part of... More

Numerous illus. in the text (many full-page). 30 folding leaves. 8vo, orig. patterned wrappers (rubbed & a little worn, some worming in blank upper margins), orig. block printed title label on upper cover, new stitching. Osaka: 1827.

First edition. “The last monograph of importance on massage in old Japan was the Ampuku zukai, compiled and published by Shinsai Ota in 1827, which gave the technique of massage in text and illustrations.”–Mestler, A Galaxy of Old Japanese Medical Books, II, pp. 485-86.

This work by Ota, a physician in Osaka, serves as the foundation of modern Anpuku therapy. “Anpuku,” which means... More

Title printed in red & black. 103 unnumbered leaves, one blank leaf. Small 8vo, modern vellum over boards. [Colophon]: Augsburg: M. Franck for G. Willer, [1568].

First edition of a Paracelsian rarity. Paracelsus' commentaries on the first five of Hippocrates' Aphorisms had been published the previous year in Cologne. The present edition comprises his commentaries on all 25 aphorisms of the first section, and on six of the second. They are followed by treatises on the medical uses of corals and the herbs hypericum (St. John's worts) and persicaria (peachwort). A slightly different version of the section on hypericum was published... More

Two engraved plates & one folding printed table. lvi, 318 pp. 8vo, fine cont. marbled sheep, spine nicely gilt, red morocco lettering piece on spine. Paris: Richard et al., An IX [1801].

First edition and a lovely copy of an important book. This work, which “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 one of the paradigmatic expressions of the medical and scientific revolution that was taking place in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.”–Grolier Club, One Hundred Books Famous in Medicine... More

Nine folding engraved plates. Three vols. 12mo, cont. blue boards (boards a bit worn), red morocco lettering pieces on spines. Paris: Herissant, 1771.

First edition in French of the first extensive history of electrical discovery and theory. Thetranslators were the Abbé Nollet and Mathurin-Jacques Brisson. It was published on the advice of Benjamin Franklin and corrected by him, but the Wheeler Gift remarks that the numerous notes by Brisson are anti-Franklinian in nature.

Very nice set. Library stamp and neat library inscription on half-titles and on titles of Vols. II and III.

❧ Ekelöf 474. Wheeler Gift 453b... More

1 p.l., 32 pp.; 1 p.l., 10 pp.; 1 p.l., 5, [1], 7-15 pp. Three parts in one vol. 8vo, orig. wrappers, orig. block-printed title-label on upper cover. From printed label pasted on inside of lower cover (partly in trans.): Aichi Prefecture: Mikawa shiryo kanko kai, printed in 70 copies, 1936.

First edition and a rare provincial printing, limited to 70 copies only. Sato (1762-1848), was a leading honzo scholar and writer on agricultural matters. He advised a number of fiefdoms throughout Japan on modern agricultural techniques. The first two parts of this work print Sato’s hitherto unpublished writings on... More

Finely engraved architectural title-page by Mallery with Henri IV seated on his throne in a garden, eight fine woodcut vignettes, fine woodcut initials, and 13 large woodcuts in Chapters XIII & XIV. 9 p.l., 3-1004, [20] pp. Folio, 18th cent. mottled calf (minor scuffing to binding extremities), spine gilt, contrasting lettering piece on spine. Paris: J. Metayer, 1600.

First edition of the first great French work on agronomy — in its widest sense — to be published. In this book, Serres devotes substantial sections to hunting, cookery, practical medicine, irrigation, forestry, viticulture, vegetable gardening, medicinal plants, fruit trees, silk cultivation... More

Three woodcut illus. in the text (one full-page). viii, 88 pp. (lacking half-title). 8vo, modern morocco by Middleton (small wormholes in upper margin of first few leaves), spine gilt. London: J. Churchill, 1847.

First edition of a great rarity. Published in October 1847, this was the second treatise on ether anesthesia, and Snow’s first book on the subject. It contains the first illustrated account of Snow’s regulating inhaler, the first to control the amount of ether vapour received by the patient. Snow had published some preliminary comments in the London Medical Gazette, following which he modified the inhaler, and included... More

80 woodcut illus. in the text. 100; 89 folding leaves. Two vols. 8vo, orig. wrappers (minor foxing & rubbing), orig. block-printed title labels on upper covers (label on Vol. I no longer present), new stitching. Kyoto: Murakami Kanbei, 1668.

First Japanese edition, in Chinese with Japanese reading marks, of the Yin hai jing wei, a Chinese ophthalmological classic, with 80 woodcut illustrations of various eye diseases. Some Chinese authorities have suggested that Simiao Sun (581-682), the famous physician of the Tang dynasty, was the author of this work, but other evidence supports a later date for the work, at least... More