26 woodcut illus. Seven vols. in one. Oblong 8vo, orig. wrappers (a bit rubbed), printed title labels on upper cover, new stitching. Osaka: 1760.

Second edition (1st ed.: Osaka, 1686) of this uncommon and early surgical work (“surgical” is used here in its widest sense); WorldCat locates only one copy of our edition (NLM). Jinbo (active 1688), has provided a number of case histories, divided by the sections of the body (chest and abdomen, extremities, and the head). There are substantial sections on burns, skin diseases, syphilitic symptoms, emergency medicine (frozen bodies, resuscitation from drowning), antidotes for food poisoning, treatment for occupational... More

A richly illustrated manuscript, important and influential in the history of medicine and surgery in Japan, revealing the introduction of European medical knowledge in Japan, through Ambroise Paré’s Chirurgie, Scultetus’s Armamentarium Chirurgicum, and Spigelius’s Opera. This is a luxury copy (only one similar set survives, at Nagasaki), in oblong folio format, and written and finely illustrated on fine thick mulberry paper. Our manuscript contains 134 exquisitely drawn and richly hand-colored illustrations.

Chinzan (or Eikyu) Narabayashi (1648-1711), belonged to a family of professional interpreters in Nagasaki and became proficient in the Dutch language. He had contact with several Dutch... 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, all finely hand-colored, depict ophthalmological instruments and a series of surgical procedures. More

43 finely engraved plates. Woodcut printer’s device on title. Title printed in red & black. 1 p.l., 10, 132, [3] pp. Folio, cont. vellum over boards (minor browning). Ulm: B. Kühnen, 1655.

First edition of the most influential and widely read illustrated surgical treatise of the 17th century. The first edition is exceptionally rare and the only one in folio format; all of the dozens of later editions and translations were in quarto or octavo, and consequently, the plate images suffered from being greatly reduced. This book was posthumously published by the author’s nephew Scultetus the Younger.

At his death in 1645, Scultetus ranked with Fabry von Hilden as the leading German surgeon; he invented many devices and bandages, including the many-tailed “Scultetus bandage” used in abdominal wounds. His Armamentarium gives the best picture of 17th-century surgical practice, illustrating such procedures as amputation of the breast, reduction of dislocations, forceps delivery, neurosurgery, etc. The work includes a complete catalogue of all known surgical instruments, of the methods of bandaging and splinting, and of a vast number of operative procedures, all of which are illustrated in graphic detail by means of numerous plates, which were never again published in their original folio size. 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 the description... More

Three folding engraved plates & one folding printed table. x, [11]-240 pp. 8vo, cont. vellum over boards (binding a little soiled & stained). Paris: F.A. Didot, 1775.

First edition. Troja (1747-1827), studied medicine at Naples and in 1774 he went to Paris where he began the research on the formation of bone tissue and bone generation which made him famous. Although Réaumur and Trembley had earlier demonstrated the regrowth of limbs in crustacea and polyps, no one before had considered the possibility of regrowth of bones.

“Troja demonstrated that if a foreign body is introduced into the marrow cavity of a long... More