1848. Single sheet, 315 x 217mm; with engraved arms at head, partially completed in neat manuscript in brown ink; with evidence of seals, some light soiling along horizontal fold, with some minor furling to extremities; a good example. A standard maritime ‘Bill of Health’, issued to guarantee the health of the ship and its crew, and granting onward passage from Uruguay to Brazil for the Brig Frederica. ‘I Martin Tupper Hood, Her Britannic Majesty’s Acting Consul General to the Oriental Republic of the Uruguay, do hereby certify to all quarantine Officers and others whom it doth or may concern, that by the Mercy of God this City, its Harbour and Vicinity, are entirely exempt from every degree of Plague or other contagious disorder’. The document has been signed by the Vice Consul, a slightly illegible signature but possibly Vernon Hunt.
As such it provides a fascinating insight into cross-boundary maintenance of public health in the first half of the 19th century, especially in the light of the recent cholera pandemics. Major efforts were being made to restrict the spread of disease, with highly organized measures being put in to practice and laws written to enforce these. Ships and sailors, with their easy mobility, were considered chief contributors to the international spread of disease, thus becoming prime culprits and easy scapegoats. The ‘Bills of Health’ nullified this threat. Issued in various places in their own individual formats, they nevertheless followed a standard pattern, were official printed forms, and were signed and dated by specific ‘qualified’ individuals. They acted, therefore, as guarantees: without them the ship could not sail or be allowed to dock: with them the citizens of port towns could feel that their good health was secure.

1900. 8vo, pp. 16; with one engraved illustration; with tri-folding small advertisement pamphlet from Victor V. May & Co, mounted on rear inside cover; some minor soiling and creasing; A scarce pamphlet issued by the Chicago Dr. Emil D Saint-Cyr (or St-Cyr), ‘Late Surgeon at the Railway Hospital and Physician Central Free Dispensary. Member of the Chicago Medical Society’.
The pamphlet describes his recent invention of a ‘curette and evacuator’, which can be used in a variety of obstetrical and gynaecological procedures, replacing the placental forceps, and ending the need for ‘the barbarous, undignified and painful methods of manual, or I might say, brachial, dilation and extraction’ (p. 1). He goes on to list a number of puerperal conditions, previously treated by hand, for which this instrument could be used instead, including abortion, miscarriage, premature delivery and delivery at term with retentions, rupture of cord, extra large placenta, puerperal septicaemia, and post partial haemorrhage.
Of additional interest is the small tri-folding advertising pamphlet adhered to the rear inside cover on behalf of Victor V. May & Co., ‘the sole manufacturers of the St-Cyr Curette and Evacuator’. OCLC locates two copies only at Harvard and Toronto.

1892. Small 8vo, pp. [vi], 44; with 7 full-page half tone plates, and further illustrations within the text, together with head- and tailpieces; some occasional light marginal soiling and foxing; with library label on front paste down, and library deaccession stamp on front free endpaper, and a number of smaller though quite discreet stamps throughout; An attractively printed account by Robert Boyle the younger, the noted Glasgow sanitary engineer and inventor and adept self-promoter, recounting his experiences during his ‘fourth crusade’ around the world, studying sanitary science and promoting sanitary reform through his own inventions.
Robert Boyle Senior (c. 1820-1878) was a practical religious philanthropist, who established charitable bakeries for Glasgow's poor, and delivered earnest, illustrated 'missionary lectures'. He opened an industrial museum promoting temperance but it failed in 1857. In 1866 he successfully demonstrated 'safe' high-explosives. Robert Boyle Junior (1850–1930) went into business with his father, and from 1870 onwards, to counter 'foul air' and harmful gaslight vapours, they developed their 'patent self-acting air-pump' roof and ship ventilators. These eliminated 'down-draught' and utilised natural air currents. They solicited testimonials from eminent scientists such as Lord Kelvin and Sir Joseph Lister, and from noted architects which adorned their full-page adverts. They won multiple prizes at international sanitary exhibitions (e.g. 1881, 1884, Paris 1900), and prominent clients included Caius College, Cambridge and St Paul's Cathedral and the Royal Society's Burlington House in London.
From their London offices at 64 Holborn Viaduct, Boyle Junior began his world-wide 'sanitary crusades' in which he would preach a doctrine of health through the breathing of pure air. Reports on Boyle's travels appeared in the Building News during the early 1890s. The present work is an account of his fourth such venture, visiting Burma, the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Siam, Borneo, Java, Australia, New Zealand, Samoa and the Sandwich Islands. He is particularly struck by the sight of the lepers at the Shway Dagohn Pagoda in Burma, who lined the steps from top to bottom, and all “suffering from that loathsome disease in its worst forms and most advanced stages” (p. 6). He observes further terrible cases in Mandalay and in the Sandwich Islands, Boyle believing it to be one of the greatest scourges of the day, and seemingly little tackled by the medical authorities. ‘Mr Boyle has a theory that the practice of cannibalism has had in the past much to do with the propagation of this terrible scourge, the disease being spread wholesale through the eating of infected bodies’ (p. 43). He also witnesses cholera and smallpox in Bangkok, discusses the water supply in Rangoon, sanitation in Sydney and Melbourne, public buildings in Adelaide, house drainage in Christchurch, and discusses the recent revolution in Honolulu. An account of this trip appeared in Nature 47, 105-106 (01 December 1892).
By the beginning of the 20th century Boyle had amassed a large fortune and in 1902 he donated £100,000 towards hygiene education in schools in 1902. When he died over £169,000 of his estate was bequeathed to charity.

1877. 4to, pp. xii, 200; with 34 plates nos 1-XXXI; outer margin of plate Tab IIB neatly repaired, with slight glue residue along outer margin of plate IX, pp. 100-4 a little loose, lightly browned and soiled throughout; First English edition, American issue (published in the same year as the London edition), and published in a smaller and more compact format, of the iconic anatomical work ‘Topographische-anatomischer Atlas’ (1872), by the noted German anatomist Wilhelm Braune (1831–1892). The original work consisted of over 30 colour lithographs, the majority life-sized, of frozen cross sections of human anatomy, and which soon gained recognition as being amongst the finest of the genre. ‘The great success of Professor Braune’s Atlas abroad has induced him to publish a smaller edition of his large work, with photographs of the original plates reduced to half-scale. It has been considered advisable to take advantage of this to reproduce the volume in English. The immense expense of producing such plates and the persistent dearth of material have, in all probability, been the cause why no original English work on topographical anatomy has as yet been placed within the reach of the generality of students’ (p. ix). It was Braune’s hope that the work would ‘assist in extending and increasing the knowledge of the human form, and of the position of the different organs to each other. The necessity for such plates for the clinic has repeatedly been expressed, and especially for military surgery’ (p. vii).
Braune studied at the universities of Göttingen and Würzburg, and in 1872, became professor of topographical anatomy at the University of Leipzig. His works are renowned for his excellent use of lithography and chromolithography to depict cross-sections of the human body, and he was a pioneer in the use of frozen cadavers for anatomical investigations. In addition to the present English translation, Braune also reproduced a number of the illustrations from his 1872 work as separate works, thus increasing their accessibility to a wider audience.
One of the most striking developments in 19th-century anatomical illustration was made possible not by a scalpel, but by a saw. Topographical anatomy, in which cadavers were sawed into slices to reveal a cross-sectional view of the organs and tissues inside, was attempted as early as the Renaissance. But, not surprisingly, the sawing motion distorted the placement of the body’s innards. It wasn’t until the early 1800s that Dutch anatomist Pieter de Riemer began to freeze the cadavers in order to harden tissues and ensure that organs stayed put when being sawed. Russian anatomist Nikolay Pirogov was one of the first to use the technique. He took advantage of Russia’s long, cold winters to deep-freeze bodies below -18 °C before slicing them up to create the illustrations that filled his four-volume Topographical Anatomy, published in 1851–54. This approach was subsequently adopted by other prosectors, such as E. Q. LeGendre at the anatomical theatre of Paris, but the most accurate topographical anatomist, and the man who did more than anyone else to popularize the approach, was Christian Wilhelm Braune. Garrison-Morton 424; OCLC: 10208716.

1883. Three vols (of four), two small and one large folio; pp. [ii] part title, [ii] preface, 155, [1], with stub remains of plates visible, which have been excised, then linen backed and loosely inserted into the larger folio for ease of use; all eighteen chromolithograph plates for Part I on poisonings present; pp. [ii] [iii]-vi index of all eighteen plates, [111]-213, [1] blank, and containing the detailed descriptions of plates 10-18, and which are bound at the rear of the volume, thus only 9 of the 18 double-page chromolithograph plates present (a number retaining the original tissue guards) and missing the first part of this second part on general forensics; text volumes a little browned, the loosely inserted poisoning plates somewhat browned in places, and slightly dog-eared through handling (plate I most noticeably affected), the general forensic plates also a little browned and soiled; with small library stamps on title-pages; Rare first edition, though sadly without the first volume of part two, of this noted atlas of forensic medicine and medical jurisprudence by the noted forensic scientist Adolphe Lesser (1851-1926).
Whilst not wishing to downplay that fact that the present copy is incomplete, it nevertheless provides an insight into the publication of such works, and how copies where then put to use and indeed bound, by their respective owners. Lesser originally published this striking work in fascicles, beginning in 1883, and with the first part on poisoning completed in 1884. In the copy offered here, the Pathological Institute of Leipzig had included in the binding the first part title, noting only ‘sechs colorirte tafeln’, but have bound all of the text on poisonings into one volume. No further part titles have been included. As revealed by the stubs at the rear of the volume, the vivid double-page chromolithograph plates, for which the work is renowned, have been excised, and have all been linen-backed and housed within a larger folio portfolio, to allow for easier use by the students.
The second companion work was itself also divided into two sections, and published between 1890-1892, and was devoted to more general forensics and traumatic injuries. It too was illustrated with a further 18 fine chromolithographs depicting such injuries as skull and bone fractures, the impact of gunshot wounds, burns, injuries caused by stabbings', and cases of infanticide. Sadly the first section is not present in the set offered here, having somehow become separated, though. The Pathological institute have retained the plates in the text volume, reflecting possibly either a change in teaching policy, or perhaps that it was the section on poisoning which was considered to be of particular educational merit to warrant an larger and more portable dissemination.
Designed primarily for forensic physicians, the text provides detailed explanations of the double-page chromolithograph plates. Some twenty types of poisonings are described and illustrated. According to Paul Brouardel (1837-1906), who wrote the preface to the French edition of the poisoning section published in 1890, the importance of the book lay in the fact that Lesser was a professor and expert close to the courts of Breslau, and "has endeavoured to provide multiple reproductions of the same intoxication". Virchow, in his preface to this first edition, praises the work for its accuracy, saying that few works of anatomical and pathological illustration could rival the work.
Adolf Lesser (1851-), graduated from Berlin University in 1875. Between 1877 and 1884 he was assistant at the Berlin Pharmacological Institute, and worked at Klinnsmann’s lunatic asylum between 1879-1886. In 1881 he became privat-docent in pharmacology at the university. In 1886 he was appointed physician-in-chief to the board of health of Breslau, subsequently appointed assistant professor at Breslau University in 1887. In addition to the present notable work, Lesser contributed essays to numerous medical journals, and also contributed to Neisser’s ‘Stereoskopischer Medizinischer Atlas’.
All editions are uncommon. Rare: Goldschmid, 213 for the German edition; OCLC locates complete copies of this work at Berkeley, UCLA and the College of Physicians, Philadelphia, and at the Wellcome, Cambridge, BL, Oxford, Edinburgh and Birmingham.

1763. Two works in one volume, 16mo; pp. [ii] engraved frontispiece, [ii] engraved title page signed ‘L. Legrand juv Sculp’, with one double-page engraved diagram ‘Sphère de Ptolomée’ and 29 double-page engraved hand coloured maps numbered 1-27, 10bis and 24bis; pp. [vi], 55, [3]; A most attractive copy of this pocket atlas, together with an accompanying and rare treatise on the use of globes. Though sometimes found, and thus also issued separately, these two works were clearly intended to be bound and issued together, as Bonne’s work contains a ‘Table des Cartes Contenues dans ce Recueil’ according to which the atlas is complete with the Sphère de Ptolomée diagram and 29 maps. Later issues had either 30 or 31 maps. Rizzi Zannoni (1736 - 1814) was an Italian cartographer and geographer who travelled extensively throughout Europe, and is remembered amongst other things for producing the first detailed map of Poland. Rigobert Bonne (1727-1795) was one of the most important cartographers of the late eighteenth century. From 1773 he held the office of Hydrographer at the Depôt de la Marine, and his maps were highly regarded for their accuracy and detail, as well as their simple but attractive aesthetic. He published his own pocket atlas, ‘Petit Tableau de la France’ in 1764. OCLC locates copies at Harvard, Michigan, Texas, Yale and the New York Public Library.

1838. Manuscript written in a single hand, in an un-ruled 8vo notebook of different coloured paper; ff. 52; pp. [8]; ff. [38] blank; first section written in landscape across the page; some occasional light foxing and marginal finger soiling; A personal album of cartomancy, written in a neat hand on multicoloured paper, and bound in a most attractive binding, by Joseph Dobson. Belonging to one ‘R. Sattersale’ of Blackburn, Lancashire, a check of the 1841 census reveals a number of Lancashire Sattersale’s - but we believe the volume may well have belong to one Rose Sattersale. Ms. Sattersale uses the most popular form of fortune-telling and card reading i.e. by using a set of standard playing cards. The author diverts, however, from more common interpretations of the cards, and has instead penned a series of light-hearted verses as answers, suggesting that this was for personal amusement amongst friends. Thus for the Seven of spades we read: ‘There are some that will speak very fare to your face, But would gladly behold you invok’d in disgrace. They call you inconstant, unkind and perverse, Forgetting that they are all this and much worse’ (p.30). Whilst for the Seven of clubs: ‘A great entertainment your presence will grace, At a very large house in a very gay place, But had you not gone you will say on the morrow, You’d been saved many hours of vexation and sorrow’ (p.1). The second section, written more regularly in portrait (as opposed to the first section penned in landscape), appears slightly more serious in tone. A series of 44 readings are given (numbered 1st-44th), providing such predictions as ‘Many things will be said to your disadvantage but you will have a warm advocate and steady friend in a gentleman you think little of’ (7th). Or this: ‘You will soon have a new relative introduced to you. I do not pretend to say agreeable, on the contrary’ (13th). The volume ends on a more positive note: ‘Your amiable disposition has gained the love of many’. Ramsden, London Bookbinders, and Packer, Bookbinders of Victorian London, both note a Joseph Dobson working in London between 1838-1840.

1890. Small 8vo, single folded sheet, pp. [4]; front and rear ‘covers’ printed in red, with music notation in black; some minor soiling and spotting, but otherwise very good. Another novelty advertising vehicle issued by the firm of Beecham’s, and promoting their famous pills for the cure of ‘bilious and nervous disorders’. Clearly a firm willing to embrace differing advertising opportunities, the ‘Beecham’s Music Portfolio’ eventually ran to some twenty volumes, each volume containing 30 popular songs for voice and piano. Originally published in St Helen’s, Lancashire, from where the firm was based, the complete volumes of songs could be purchased from the company, whilst individual songs sheets, as here, appear to have been sold, or indeed given away, by pharmacies.
The pills, originally sold as a laxative, first appeared on the market in 1842, and were invented by the chemist Thomas Beecham (1820-1907), grandfather of the famous conductor. The pills themselves were a combination of aloe, ginger, and soap, and unusually for patent medicines, they did actually have some positive effect on the digestive process.

1930. Single sheet on crepe paper, 184 x 120mm, printed on recto only along the outer margins, central box apparently blank - though impregnated with secret message to be revealed when heated; clean and fresh. An advertising novelty produced by the famous firm of Beecham’s. As the note along the left margin states: ‘When you suffer from colds, chills, influenza, headache, rheumatism, nerve pains, Beecham’s Powders Act like Magic’. The present curiosity is itself a magical trick to highlight the tag line. The application of a glowing piece of burned string to the central panel will reveal a secret message - which in this case appears to reveal a tortoise! A previous example, showed a chicken, with another, which though difficult to discern, incorporated the phrase ‘Beecham’s Pills’.

1789. 4to, pp. 103, [1]; with five folding engraved plates; some occasional light foxing and soiling otherwise generally clean and crisp; finally gathering apparently printed on thicker paper stock; Uncommon first edition in book form of the author's well-illustrated and noted monograph on faculae and sunspots. The work was first read before the Academy of Sciences in Mainz in June 1788 and was also published in the academy’s Acta for 1788 and 1789. Schröter (1745-1816), established in Lilienthal one of the finest observatories in Europe, equipping it with the best instruments (all of which were paid for by George III). He was an active solar observer between 1785 and 1795, and his sunspot drawings were used by Rudolf Wolf in his own studies of sunspot and solar activity. "For thirty years the observatory at Lilienthal was a centre of astronomical research and was visited by foreign astronomers…Schröter was the first to observe the surface of the moon and the planets systematically over a long period. He made hundreds of drawings of lunar mountains and other features, and discovered and named the lunar rills."-D.S.B., XII, p. 226. His two volumes on Lunar topography reached levels of detail that were to remain for many years unsurpassed. OCLC locates copies at Chicago, Linda Hall, the Huntington, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, NYPL, and Cambridge.

ca. 1920s?]. Small 18mo, pp. 66, [4], with two half tone illustrations and numerous line drawings; with advertisements on front and rear inside covers; a little browned; An appealing and uncommon manual of engineering, issued by the noted firm of C.H. Bailey, based in Newport in Wales. This small illustrated pocket guide, was one of a number of educational works published by the company in the early part of the 20th century, including C. H. Bailey’s Handy book of constants’(1906), and their more extensive Book of Useful Information’(1906). Some of the illustrations found in that work have been reprinted here.
Founded in the 1880s, the company was incorporated in May 1923 as C.H. Bailey, Graham and Co. Just prior to the start of World War II, it became C.H. Bailey Ltd. Almost 50 years later, the company listed on the London Stock Exchange. Until the early 1960s, the company was engaged primarily in owning and operating dry docks, ship repairing and heavy engineering. While the company’s first dry dock operations were in Newport, it also operated in Barry, Cardiff, Swansea, Port Talbot, on the Mersey, and in Bristol and Malta. OCLC locates one copy at the National Maritime Museum.

1873. Large partially coloured wood engraved wall chart with letterpress, 137 x 93 cms, dissected into 32 sections and laid on linen as issued, folding down to 18 x 23.5cms; quite heavily browned and soiled, with evidence of previous pin marks at each corner (with resulting rust marks most notably at upper right corner), several of the linen folds with neat repairs to verso, linen rather foxed with a couple of areas of ink staining towards the tail, one area displaying some minor worming, though neither fault affecting the wall chart itself. A large and most striking educational wall chart introducing the student to the wonders of the universe. A large circular depiction of the solar system with star map and comets, printed in blue, black and white dominates, the upper half of the chart. Descriptive text, printed in eight columns, is found below and which describes each of the planets with one section devoted to a discussion of comets. Sixteen striking illustrations form a border around the chart and which include depiction’s of icebergs at the poles, the Cotopaxi Volcano, eclipses, a cross section of the earth, orbits of the comets, the phases of the moon, and faces of the moon and jupiter, a large telescope, and the Aurore Boreales. Four smaller circular illustrations surround the main solar system illustration, with the title located centrally and contained within an image of a globe.
The British Library date their copy to 1875, with the BnF suggesting a date of 1877. We can find no date on the present example, although a contemporary hand has pencilled in a date of 1873 just below the main solar system image.

1905. Large 8vo, pp. [iv], 426, [2] imprint; catalogue copiously illustrated throughout, with prices given; some light foxing and soiling; a few gutters exposed in places, but holding firm; A wonderful priced trade catalogue from the turn of the twentieth century, promoting a myriad of medical and surgical equipment as manufactured by the prize-winning instrument makers, the Rainal brothers, Léon and Jules, renowned in particular for making orthopaedic devices and corsets. The catalogue is divided into 29 sections covering a wide range of medical specialities, though it is the sections highlighting their numerous orthopaedic devices that are particularly striking - and in some cases slightly terrifying! The catalogue begins with a section on ‘bandages herniarires’, with detailed sections on physiological corsets, ‘mécanothérapie’, ‘ankylose’, ‘prosthèse’, ‘appareils pour malades et blessés’, equipment for the care of babies, including incubators, and concluding with a range of ENT instruments.
In 1899 the brothers published Le Bandage herniaire, a comprehensive account of the treatment of hernias, providing both an historical and present day discussion on the use of surgical trusses, including their own observations carried out over twenty-five years of private practice.

1866. Small folio, pp. [ii], 4 with ten engraved plates and plans (one double-page); some occasional minor marginal dust-soiling, and some light foxing; First separate edition of this attractively illustrated architectural account of the design and construction of the new anatomical Institute at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Berlin, by the noted German architect Friedrich Albert Cremer (1824-1891). The engraved plates include depiction’s of some of the finer details of the building, including some of the ornate light fittings, and even the water closets, with plans of the proposed grounds also included.
Cremer, the son of the builder Johann Peter Cremer (1785-1853), studied architecture at the Berlin Academy in 1846. After some time spent in the Prussian Army as a hydraulics engineer, he returned to Berlin in 1859 and was appointed as a building Inspector. His first major architectural project, together with Carl Johann Christian Zimmermann (1831-1911), was an expansion to the Berlin debt prison to create a women’s prison. This was followed by his two most famous commissions for the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität: designing both a new Anatomical Institute building as discussed here, and under the guidance of the new director of Chemistry August Wilhelm von Hofmann, a new purpose-built chemistry laboratory, about which Cremer also published a similar account in 1868, Das neue chemische laboratorium zu Berlin.
The present account was also published in Zeitschrift für Bauwesen 16/1866 and 17/1867. OCLC locates copies at Cornell, the New York Public Library, the NLM, Glasgow, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Library.

1835. Small folio, pp. [viii], 36, [2] duplicate leaf of pp. 35-6,[37]-44, [4] explanation to plates and vitae curriculum; with four engraved plates, one partially hand-coloured in blue and red, and signed ‘Franz Wagner del, C. Guinard sc’; title-page somewhat browned, with further browning and foxing throughout, plates quite prominently foxed and browned, corners a little furled, with a few small marginal nicks and tears, ink accession number at upper margin of title-page with very faint blindstamp at tail; A detailed dissertation on pathological anatomy, focusing upon human and animal abnormalities, and in particular the various types of bone fissures. For a doctoral thesis it is surprisingly well produced in the larger folio format, using appealing typography and including four finely engraved plates illustrating the head of a young lamb or calf.
Conrad Meyer-Ahrens (1813-1872) was a Swiss physician and medical historian. He studied at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin where he publicly defended the present dissertation. The dedication is to his teacher, Johannes Müller. Hirsch, p.223; OCLC locate copies at Chicago, Harvard, Michigan, Columbia, Cornell, New York Academy, Washington and Cambridge.

1788. 4to, pp. xii, 319, [1] blank; with appealing engraved title-page vignette, and four folding engraved plates; title-page a little soiled and browned, light foxing and browning throughout, small stain affecting fore edge of last couple of leaves, and of outer margin of plates; First edition of this detailed, rational and erudite dissertation on the applications of electricity to physics and medicine, written in response to a prize question posed by the Royal and Patriotic Society of Valence. A contemporary review in the Monthly Review of the same year provides a useful summation: ‘We are informed, in the preface, that this dissertation (originally written in Latin) was translated into French by the ingenious and learned Professor Van Swinden of Amsterdam, and that it is now published in this language at the desire of the Society for which it was written. The question, which gave occasion to it, was proposed in the following terms: Has artificial electricity, from its discovery to the present time, really contributed to the progress of physics? And has it, considered in a medical view, been of more service than prejudice to mankind? It can scarcely be supposed that such a question could admit of a negative; nor can we imagine that it was proposed as a matter of doubt. We must therefore conclude that this learned body wished to facilitate the study of electricity, by means of a general, historical, and critical, view of the several discoveries that have hitherto been made in this branch of physics, - of the meteorological theories to which they have given occasion, and of the various experiments in which electricity has been applied to the cure of diseases. If this was the intention of the Society, it is completely answered by the work before us; which contains a very ample amount of what has been done in these respects, by philosophical and medical electricians, interspersed with judicious observations on facts and opinions’ (Vol 80, p. 658).
The work is divided into two parts discussing the physical and the medical applications. The gradual progress of electrical knowledge from the earliest until 1787 is included, together with an examination of theories relating to the relationship of lightening and electricity, of a connection to phenomena such as the Aurora Borealis, and whether electricity influences the acceleration of vegetation. The second part investigates electricity in relation to the cure of disease and gives ‘a very large collection of cases, from various writers, in which it has been attended with success’ (ibid). The work of several contemporaries is discussed including that of Volta, Franklin, De Mairan and Sigaud de la Fond.
‘Although van Troostwijk worked in Amsterdam as a merchant most of his life (1770-1816), he became an important Dutch chemist who published thirty-five works on his experiments in chemistry and electricity between 1778 and 1818. Nothing is known of his education except that he was greatly influenced by M. van Marum, Director of Teyler’s Museum in Haarlem. A phlogonist until 1788, he was a founder of the Batavian Club, better known as the Society of Dutch Chemists (1791), which was instrumental in securing recognition in the Netherlands for Lavoisier’s discoveries’ (DSB). Cornelius Rudolphus Krayenhoff (1758-1840) was a fellow member, as were Jacob Rudolph Deiman (1743-1808), and in 1789 Deiman and Troostwijk became famous for their experiment by which they split water and hydrogen for the first time through electrolysis. Bierens de Haan, 3690; Mottelay, 385 (note); Kress, 6355; Wheeler gift 551; Ronalds 504.

1747. 4to, pp. xii, 252, [10]; with attractive woodcut vignettes, head and tail pieces; some occasional light spotting and marginal browning, otherwise clean and fresh; with contemporary ownership inscriptions at head of both front and rear paste downs (though rather illegible), and on front free end paper ‘(Greek) Severini Cioccui (?) Vivo Clavis.mo, Gregorio Barbettio’; First edition, and a most attractive copy, of this early and detailed study on malaria as observed in the Neretva delta in Dalmatia by the noted Paduan physician, Giuseppe Pujati (1701-1760). Now a popular Croatian tourist destination, recognised as an area of great natural beauty, diversity of landscape, and ecological importance, at the time of publication the region was an inhospitable marshy valley, beset by a fever that was particularly prevalent during the autumn. In this detailed treatise on the ‘Neretva disease’, Pujati first presents a brief history of the fever, before examining its’ nature and progress, and concluding with an account of a number of historical outbreaks. In this erudite work Pujati makes frequent reference to both contemporary and historical sources, citing authors such as Lancisi, Ramazzini, Boerhaave, Morgani, Winslow, Haller, Heister, Hoffman, Hippocrates and Celsus. Pujati concludes that he believes the disease to be some kind of plague, from which there is little chance of survival, and believed too that the pestiferous stagnant water in certain places could also kill fish, and that marsh birds were also poisoned by the lethal evaporations.
Pujati’s work was later referred to by Alberto Fortis in his account of his early voyages to Dalmatia in 1774. Indeed Pujati’s dire warnings ‘were enough to frighten anyone who had a mind to go there’ according to Fortis. By taking some sensible precautions however, Fortis and his reluctant crew survived a fifteen day stay in the region in October, and his observations note the possibility of it being a mosquito-transmitted disease.
Pujati first studied in Venice and then at the University of Padua, where he was a student of Morgagni and Vallisneri. After graduation he practised in Venice, Dalmatia, Polcenigo and Pordenone, before obtaining in 1737 the post of Senior physician in Feltre, where he spent 12 years. In 1754 the Venetian Senate called him to the Chair of Ordinary Practice Medicine in Padua University, a post he held until his death. Blake p. 366; Wellcome IV, p. 447; OCLC locates a number of additional copies including Yale and Michigan in the US, and Berlin, Göttingen, and Edinburgh.

(1801). 12mo, pp. [viii] including first blank, 192, [2] errata and blank; errata leaf laid down with repair at lower gutter (no loss of text), title-page a little browned with minor abrasion causing loss of a couple of letters, text lightly browned; First edition of this thoughtful essay on tombs and the influence of funeral institutions over manners and morals, providing a comparative study of funeral rites and ceremonies, including discussion of China, Canada, Tahiti and Guyana.
Girard’s work was one of a number compositions entered for a competition set by the L’Institut National. As with so many areas of public life in the aftermath of the Revolution, there was a growing widespread concern over a lack of respect for the dead and their burial, the preceding decade having borne witness to a prevalence of what were considered by many to be indecent and at times almost inhumane modes of interment. Girard therefore presents his ideas and plan for ‘d’Institutions funèbres simple et moral, et j'y mêlai toutes les idées consolantes qui peuvent adoucir la dernière et douloureuse séparation’ (p. 4), in which he looks at such issues as ‘proclamation des décès, l’inscription sur les tables funéraires et l’eloge des morts’. OCLC locates copies at UCLA, Princeton, Harvard, Louisiana State and NYPL.