1906. Large 4to, pp. [ii] title-page, 76; with 72 stereoscopic photographs, some with additional hand-colouring, mounted in 18 blue card sleeves; some light browning to text, a few leaves with some marginal dust-soiling visible along fore-edge aligning with tabs on plates; in the original blue publisher's cloth, upper cover and spine lettered in gilt, head and tail of spine a little rubbed and bumped, with further light scuffing and rubbing to covers and extremities, corners lightly bumped; a very good copy. First edition of this striking and unusual atlas, giving a graphically illustrated account of the various types of hernias using stereoscopic photographs. A hernia occurs when an internal part of the body pushes through a weakness in the muscle or surrounding tissue wall. They can occur throughout the body, but most often develop in the area of the body between the chest and hips. The most common type is the inguinal, but other types include femoral, hiatus, incisional and umbilical.
‘Stereoskopbilder zur Lehre von den Hernien is an example of the co-operation between surgeon Eugen Enderlen and anatomist Emil Gasser. It includes photographs of dissected preparations that illustrate the anatomy of hernias. They come from what is known today as the Gasser-Strahl collection in the Anatomical Institute at the Philipps University in Marburg, Germany... Each pair of images is matched with a corresponding description on the opposite page. For purposes of clarity, some of the photographs were enhanced with color. The same color code was used throughout the atlas: red for arteries, blue for veins, and yellow for nerves. When adding color was superfluous, the images were left unchanged. As intended by the authors, the atlas can be viewed using any standard stereoscope. However the naked eye can be trained to perceive the depth of stereoscopic pictures and give the user the illusion of a 3-D image without the use of a stereoscope’ (University of Pittsburgh Health Sciences Library, online Treasures from the Rare Book Room: Photography and Medical Books, Part 3).