Scroll (298 x 7160 mm.), gold-flecked inner front endpaper. [Japan]: late Edo.

Laurent Heister’s great Chirurgie (1st ed.: 1718), one of the most important 18th-century surgery textbooks, went through many editions and translations. We know that a copy of the second Dutch edition of 1755, translated by Hendrik Ulhoorn, had been brought to Dejima in Nagasaki, where it was much studied, copied, and translated by Japanese doctors for the next 75 years. Heister’s writings and illustrations of bandaging techniques were particularly valued.

This scroll contains 172 finely drawn images of many kinds of bandages and bandaging techniques (including bandages for... More

Trans. by Otsuki (or Ootsuki) Genkan 大槻玄幹 & Otsuki Gentaku 大槻玄沢. Numerous fine woodcut illus. in the text. 26.5; 40; 26.5 folding leaves (without the six leaves of ads at end). Three vols. 8vo, orig. semi-stiff greenish-gray wrappers, orig. block-printed title labels on upper covers (bindings a little wormed). Edo & Kyoto: Suharaya ihachi 須原屋伊八 et al., Preface dated 1824.

First edition in Japanese; this is a very rare book with no copy outside of Japan. As Mestler writes: “The situation with regard to the ‘Yoi shinsho’ is all but hopelessly mixed up” (p. 213 in his A Galaxy of... 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

Four full-page woodcut illus. .5, 33 folding leaves. Large 8vo, orig. blue wrappers (covers discolored & rubbed), new stitching. [Japan]: 1854.

First edition of a very rare book. Ōtsuki (1806-62), physician to the shogun, studied in Nagasaki under Siebold, where he learned Western medicine. He popularized vaccination in Japan. “Otsuki also translated unidentified writings of both von Chelius and Georg Friedrich Most, supposedly from Dutch editions, to compose a one-volume work on the treatment of gunshot wounds entitled Juso sagen, published about 1854…That work was the first Japanese book on military surgery of the European school.”–Mestler, A Galaxy of Old... 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

Seven full-page woodcuts & a few smaller text illus. 49 folding leaves. 8vo, orig. wrappers, orig. title label on upper cover with title in manuscript, modern stitching. Wakayama: Kasedaya Hiemon et al., 1818.

First edition of Takebe’s translation and commentary of Lorenz Heister’s writings on infections and their treatment. Heister (1683-1758), wrote one of the best and most complete works on surgery of the 18th century. Translated into Japanese, it was enormously successful, introducing Western methods to many Japanese surgeons.

Takebe (1782-1842), a samurai, has included here all of Heister’s writings on infections and has provided a number of his... More