1821. Two volumes in one, 8vo; pp. [iv], xxviii, 486; 422, [2]; with four engraved plates of which three are folded; some sporadic light marginal dampstaining, light spotting and browning throughout but otherwise clean and bright; old label at head of front paste-down; in contemporary calf-backed brown marbled boards, with marbled edges and retaining green silk marker, spine ruled and lettered in gilt, upper joint split but holding, with old repair to upper rear joint and visible split across lettered compartment, head and tail of joint lightly rubbed, with further light wear to extremities; a good copy. Notable edition of Scarpa’s famous treatise on the diseases of the eye, first published in 1801, here expanded and translated into French by Europe’s first Black physician, François Fournier-Pescay (1771-1833), together with his colleague Louis Jacques Bégin (1793-1859).
Fournier was the son of Adélaïde Rappau, a ‘mulâtress libre’ and the plantation owner François de Pescay of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti). His parents returned to France and settled in Bordeaux, at the time a diverse city accustomed to biracial immigrants, mainly from the French West Indies. ‘Unlike in the colonies, there were few laws impeding upward mobility of “persons of color” (les personnes des couleur), thus Fournier benefited from an excellent education in Paris followed by medical training in Bordeaux. Swept up in the upheaval of the French Revolution, twenty-one-year-old Fournier, along with his brothers Jacques Philippe and Louis Georges, joined the army in 1792. During his service as an army surgeon (chirugien aide-major), he demonstrated extraordinary scientific ability by becoming the first Frenchman to duplicate Englishman Adair Crawford’s experiments with barium chloride in the treatment of tuberculosis which he later published. He left the military in 1799 to practice medicine in Brussels, Belgium, where he co-founded the city’s medical society, Société de Médecine de Bruxelles, and served as its first secretary-general, recording volumes of proceedings. In 1803 he founded the arts and sciences journal Le nouvel spirit des journaux and later published an eighty-six-page treatise on tetanus which was lauded by the Medical Society of Paris. Moving from Brussels to Strasbourg, France, he became professeur-directeur at the École Spéciale de Médecine de Strasbourg.’(Robert Fikes on https://blackpast.org). Fournier was to return to Haiti in 1823 and under the regime of Jean-Pierre Boyer, was appointed Inspector General of the Health Department and Director of Haiti’s first university (L'Académie d'Haïti). ‘It is simply a fact that no other physician of African descent was able to accomplish as much during the 18th and 19th centuries, or probably any time prior to the onset of the Industrial Revolution. Perhaps it is because Fournier was born in France that he has not been accorded the recognition he deserved for being the first medical doctor of African descent to help found a medical society, to publish medical research, to found a literary and scientific journal, and to become a distinguished administrator and educator at home and abroad.’ (Fikes, p. 683).
Scarpa’s work is considered the first textbook of ophthalmology in Italian and was to establish his reputation. It went through several editions and translations. ‘It contains the first description of the operation of iridodialysis, and significant chapters on cataract, staphyloma and diseases of the vessels in the eye. Like most of Scarpa’s works... [it] is illustrated with the author’s own superbly executed drawings. “[Scarpa] himself trained the famous Faustino Anderloni to become the engraver of his illustrations... His anatomic prints are therefore models of anatomic representation as regards faithful differentation of the tissues, correctness of form, and the utmost perfection of engraving” (Choulant, p. 298)’ (Norman, 1899).