Printed in Chinese with Japanese reading marks. Five full-page woodcuts in the text. Eight parts in 15 vols. Large 8vo, orig. wrappers stained with persimmon juice (wrappers rubbed), orig. block-printed title labels on upper covers, later stitching. [Kyoto]: Preface dated 1575; Murakami Heirakuji, 1642.

A very early Japanese edition; the first edition was published in China in 1575. Yixue rumen was the work of Li Chan (fl. 1573-1619), a Ming dynasty physician. An influential introductory Chinese medical textbook, it is itself a condensation of the important Gu Jin Yi Tong [Old and Modern Medical Generalities] by Xu Chunfu, published in... More

22 finely hand-colored full-page woodcuts. 35; 39, 30 folding leaves. Three vols. 8vo, orig. wrappers (some marginal worming in Vol. III), orig. block printed title label on each upper cover, new stitching. Tokyo: 1872.

First edition in Japanese of this collection of translations from a variety of Western ophthalmological texts. NLM suggests the author was Paul Silex (1858-1929), but this is clearly impossible. The present work is the earliest work published in Japan on Western techniques in ophthalmology, preceding the Ika zensho ganka-hen of 1879 (see Mestler, A Galaxy of Old Japanese Medical Books, IV, p. 336.

The attractive plates... More

48 pages. 8vo, later brown half morocco, orig. upper printed wrapper bound-in. Boston: W.B. Little, 1848.

First American edition. The important appendix, first printed in this edition, starts with a long letter by J.C. Warren on the chemical nature and synthesis of chloroform, and is followed by several letters by C.T. Jackson and other Boston surgeons contrasting chloroform with ether. Their reception of chloroform was at first enthusiastic.

Presentation copy from the publisher, with a (cropped) inscription at the top of the wrapper.

❧ Fulton & Stanton VI 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