1937. 4to, pp. 36, with four leaves of coloured plates, together with numerous text illustrations; with errata note tipped at tail of p. 33, and with three revised notes tipped on to p. 35; p. 33 torn at gutter but not touching text; Uncommon manufacturer’s catalogue promoting a complete dental ‘unit’ for modern dental practitioners. The ‘Rathbone’ reclining dental chair together with attached spotlighting, small basins, and moveable apparatus trays, was ‘based on a thorough investigation of the needs of modern dentistry and a study of the possibilities and limitations of dental units generally. The layout is such that every piece of apparatus comes readily and naturally to hand. The position and movements of each component have been planned so that, when in use, the component can be brought to the most convenient position for the operator, and when not required, returned to a point where it will not impede him in any way’. OCLC locates one copy of the 1933 issue at the Wellcome.

2015. The Swedish Dental Society, founded in 1860, accumulated an important historical collection of over 850 odontological books, the majority printed before 1920, and which today forms one of the major special collections deposited in the Hagströmer Medico-Historical Library in Stockholm. The catalogue comprises 208 pages and 161 illustrations with descriptions of 65 books including the earliest printed works from the sixteenth century entirely devoted to dentistry, as well as on how to cure toothache, on extraction, and on the replacement of false teeth. The collections includes first editions of several odontological classics, from Eustachi's Libellus de dentibus (1583) through to Jackson's Orthodontia of 1904 on the regulation of teeth, and including the most famous of them all, Pierre Fauchard's Chirurgien Déntiste, Paris, 1728. Each item is given a bibliographical description and at least one page with a historical commentary on the author and the importance of his work.
**Temporarily out of stock - but more on order and will be available in due course.

1873.]. Set of ten large, thick card tablets, 480 x 320 x 5mm; each with mounted printed sheet, with engraved vignette either at head or centrally, sheets all a little browned with some staining, soiling and scuffing or creasing in places, plain blue paper on verso, boards 1- 7 with the original green mottled paper edging (somewhat chipped and worn), boards 8 & 9 with later green cloth edging, and final board with no edging remaining and exposing the inner board; though extremities all somewhat rubbed, worn and a little dog-eared, otherwise a striking and rare survivor of an ephemeral teaching aid. A wonderfully striking and extremely scarce set of this didactic French ‘ABC’. The ‘Cours Désir’ was a private quasi-religious Catholic educational establishment set up by the Adeline Désir (1819-1875) in 1853. In particular it welcomed girls from the Parisian upper middle class, and its specific aim was to produce ‘cultured women’, with a focus upon religious education, and the arts, although Désir did place importance upon the role of science in the education of young women. The school took in full-and half boards, as well as some day pupils, from primary stage through to the baccalaureate, and also included a school for the training of women teachers. As the famous alumnus, Simone de Beauvoir, recounted in her ‘Memoirs of a Young Girl’, the school took care to distinguish itself from similar secular establishments, with the young girls enlisted into a ‘Eucharistic crusade’ as soon as they arrived. The number of hours of teaching a week did not exceed 12, and annual retreats were an important part of the school calendar. Students of the school were instantly recognisable by the manner of their bow: ‘un coup de pied droit en arrière avec un léger fléchissement de la jambe gauche’.
The series of ten printed teaching aids, introduce the young child to the basic principles of the ‘Abécdaire français’, through a series of engraved images with accompanying moralistic printed text or verse, starting with the nativity, the farm, ‘Creator God’, a nest, the tale of the ‘Good little Marie’, ‘the two Ceciles’, the good brother, and the Innocent Saints, together with the remaining two boards giving an overview of the linguistic principles so far introduced. See Butsch, Une éducatrice d’avant-garde, Adeline Désir 1819-1875, 1956; OCLC locates only a set of the first six boards at the BnF, and which have a variant imprint of "Paris imp. A. Dutemple" as opposed to "Bourges, Imp. Ve Tardy-Pigelet and son".

1873. 8vo, pp. 12, with double-page lithograph plate; An attractive presentation offprint of a lecture delivered before the Neuchâtel Society of Natural History on May 1st 1873. Desor, the noted geologist and professor at the Academy of Neuchâtel, here outlines a number of Bronze Age archaeological discoveries found in Siberia, many of which are depicted in the double-page plate, illustrating ‘objets préhistoriques en bronze des environs de Krasnojarsk sur le Jenisseï, Siberie’.
Provenance: Sven Lovén (1809–1895) was a pioneering marine biologist (founder of the Kristineberg marine station) and arctic explorer, professor of invertebrate zoology at the Natural History Museum (Naturhistoriska Riksmuséet) in Stockholm. Poggendorff III, p. 355; OCLC records no copies in North America, with only one copy at the Bibliotheque D’Art et D’Archeologie.

1890-1901.]. Large oblong album, 270 x 420 mm; ff. 33 leaves of thick paper 264 x 410mm; with 399 late Victorian calling cards, greeting cards, menus, invitations etc neatly mounted and organised, with a further 7 items loosely inserted, front and rear endpapers also used, four pages unused, and one calling card blank; a number of the cards signed or with manuscript messages of greeting, several of the mounted items with neat manuscript annotations penned below by Dietz; some light foxing, soiling throughout, with some offsetting and see-through caused by the glue, a few cards now a little faded, one or two slightly creased, and with a couple of small marginal tears; An extraordinary turn of the century personally compiled album of printed calling cards and correspondence, received over a number of years by Catinka [also Cathinka] Mackenzie de Dietz (1813-1901), noted concert pianist and former pianist to the Queen of Bavaria. As such, it throws a fascinating light upon her social circle, forming a veritable ‘Who’s Who’ of European Royalty and High Society, and made even more appealing by her acerbic and often slightly scandalous annotations! Dietz ‘made her Paris debut on 7 February 1836 at the Salle Pleyel with the first movement of Hummel's Concerto in A Minor and Kalkbrenner's staple debut piece - his Grand Duo in D for two pianos, Op. 128 - with Thalberg. Her career revolved around placements at royal courts. By 1840 she was pianist to the queen of Bavaria; the following year she played at the French court and was appointed pianist to the queen of the French in 1845. She composed salon pieces, played regularly for Queen Victoria, and was reported to have written an oratorio for which Queen Victoria accepted the dedication. Her pianistic style was Classical, firmly within the Kalkbrenner tradition. She sometimes published under her married name, Mackenzie von Dietz.’ (Katherine Ellis, "Female Pianists and Their Male Critics," Journal of the American Musicology Society Vol. 50 2/3, p. 359). She married William Mackenzie Shaw, Managing Director of the Antwerp and Rotterdam Railways, and they apparently divided their time between Paris and Saint Germain, no doubt entertaining quite extensively, if the present array of cards is anything to go by. Amongst the small number of loosely inserted additional material, are the two black-edged mourning invitations printed by Catinka for her husband after his death on December 7th 1890.
The souvenir album houses predominantly elegantly printed calling cards, though Dietz has also retained and mounted a handful of greeting and Christmas cards, invitations, menus, and clippings. European Royalty are well represented, with several cards given by Princes, Princesses, Counts and Countesses, Viscountesses, and Barons. A high percentage of the cards have been given by other women. Others reveal her various artistic relationships, and as a whole, the album provides a wonderful snap-shot of social connections and late Victorian high society. A number have been inscribed by the giver with messages of esteem, whilst of particular appeal, Dietz herself has frequently added a little note below the card (usually in French, though sometimes English), and which often prove to be quite humorous and sometimes a little acerbic, adding some delicious flavour to this Who’s Who of the Belle Époque.
Under the card for ‘Le Comte de Barck’ she has written ‘c'est dangereuse de s'embarquer avec lui?; Alderman Wilson of Beckenham apparently gave very good dinners; Mrs Crawford Bromehead apparently ‘found the tenors kinder than her husband,’; Mrs Baker ‘was a prim lady’; Mrs R. E. Hamer ‘Her pretty face greeted her two husbands’; under the card for Lady Caroline Murray ‘Sa famille ne payait pas ses dettes’; under the card for M. & Madame Ernest du Fresnel ‘Out of sight, out of mind’; for the painter James Frutier she notes that he ‘sells spinach’; E. Nathan, ‘miaule sur son violoncelle et fait le tendre auprès du beau sexe’, whilst Camille Philipp ‘est sourd et pourtant la déesse de la mélodie lui prodigue ses faveurs’ (is deaf and yet the godess of melody lavishes him with favours). The lawyer Malioche apparently ‘does business with lost funds’, whilst she describes Georges Stigelli as ‘a heavy German who made himself an Italian singer by adding an i to his name’; whilst Albert Anschutz, a professor of piano, ‘gives music lessons, cleans, composes lullabies and prepares baths for Madame’.
Increasing attention is being given to the study of Victorian card ephemera, including calling cards, of which the present album provides a comprehensive and unique example. As the 19th century progressed, rules of deportment became more rigid, and cards helped define the complicated new social code and express its growing sentimentality. Barbara Rusch provides some insight into their importance in her essay ‘The Secret Life of Victorian Cards’ on the Ephemera Society of America’s website. ‘Cards were the ambassadors of social convention, and their subtle, covert messages were well understood by those who used them as tools in the creation of an image of respectability in an increasingly demanding and judgemental world. Particularly noteworthy are cards of social and cultural significance such as the visiting card. In Our Deportment, published in 1890, John Young observes: “To the unrefined or under-bred, the visiting card is but a trifling and insignificant bit of social paper; but to the cultured disciple of social law, it conveys a subtle and unmistakable intelligence. Its texture, style of engraving, and even the hour of leaving it to combine to place the stranger, whose name it bears, in a pleasant or a disagreeable attitude, even before his manners, conversation and face have been able to explain his social position.” ... The use of cards in 19th-century daily life represented and helped define class, breeding, and status. They were a form of social contract, a common language, and ideology through which the Victorians communicated with one another, maintained moral standards and disseminated popular culture’ (Rusch).

1825. Small folio; pp. [ii] original printed green paper wrapper to first fascicle bound in as general title, [64] of biographical text; with 32 lithograph portraits; somewhat foxed throughout, with the text leaves for Linné, Aldrovani, Celsus, Sydenham and Bartez rather browned, and those for Chaussier and Haller at the end of the work heavily browned; Rare. A complete set bound together of this most striking lithograph ‘gallery’ of some of the most notable figures in medical history.
The inspiration of the physician Guillaume Tell Doin (1794-1845), the lithographer Pierre Roche Vigneron (1789-1872), and the publisher G. Engelmann (1788-1839), according to a contemporary review in the ‘Archives générales de médecine; Journal publié par une société de médecins’ (Tome IX, p. 312, Sept 1825), the original intention was to produce one hundred portraits, the whole publication issued in a series of monthly fascicles containing four portraits together with accompanying biographical text. Normal copies on plain paper would cost 6fr, whilst more luxurious copies on China paper priced at 9fr. However, as later notices reveal, the plan was revised down to a proposed series of 10 fascicles - and indeed ultimately only eight were produced, with 32 fine lithograph portraits issued. No more were published, and being issued in individual fascicles, the plates more often than not, now appear individually. It is thus uncommon to find a bound copy of the complete series.
In the present copy beginning with Hippocrates, (the order of the copy found at Padova is different) Doin and Vigneron have concentrated upon Western luminaries both ancient and modern, and thus we find included Galen, Leonard Fuchs, Andreas Vesalius, William Harvey, Albrecht von Haller, Philippe Pinel, Herman Boerhaave, Paul Joseph Barthez, and Edward Jenner. From the wider sphere, portraits of Carl Linnaeus and Nicolas Copernicus are also included, with the medieval Islamic polymath Averroes chosen as the sole representative from the Arabic world. Brunet II-789 (edition de 1825-1826); Pauly, Bibliographie des sciences medicales, I, p. 59 noting that only parts 1-8 published: OCLC locates copies at the New York Academy of Medicine, Syraceuse, Yale, the NLM and the Wellcome.

1848. Two volumes, 8vo text and 4to atlas; pp. [viii] including blank, 475, [1] blank; with attractive engraved frontispiece showing young ladies gardening, and numerous text wood engravings of which the majority are hand-coloured, gathering 19 misbound; atlas ff. [2], 124, comprising 15 divisional part-titles, [1] index (pp 123-4) and 107 hand-coloured engraved plates; title-page and frontispiece of text volume a little foxed and browned, with occasional light foxing and marginal browning, and two book-labels on front paste-down; atlas title page with appealing hand-coloured vignette, half title and index leaf somewhat browned, a little foxed and soiled throughout; An attractive, though mixed set of the third edition (first 1847) and first edition, of this charming work of instruction for young French women about the cultivation of herbs, and for the establishment and care of a garden. Both text and atlas are most attractively illustrated and hand-coloured, with textual engravings and plates by F. Leblanc from drawings by Belaife, illustrating flowers, leaves, fruits, berries, seeds and mushrooms. The text volume was first published in 1847 and went through nine editions over twenty years. The much rarer atlas volume was separately issued first in 1850, and followed only by an undated 1865 edition. This separate issue and sale of both text and atlas has led to an inevitable scarcity of complete sets. Pritzel 283; Nissen BBI supp. 54n; Plesch p. 130; BMC NH, p. 71 (text vol.); see Gumunchian 395-398 for earlier editions; OCLC locates copies at Arizona and the Lloyd Library for this edition of the text, with seemingly only one copy of the atlas at Bern.

1879. 8vo, pp. x, [ii], 108; with four full page steel engraving plates (two highlighted in red and two described as being ‘from photograph’), and a number of smaller text illustrations; a little browned throughout with some occasional minor spotting and soiling, gutters exposed in a couple of plates; with two loosely inserted later recipes for barley water and some contemporary marginal annotations; Fourth edition (same year as the first) of this later Victorian introduction to home economics, one of a number of instructional works intended for the specific use of working class women and children and written by the leading Yorkshire social reformer and philanthropist Catherine M. Buckton (1827-1904).
A founder member of the Ladies’ Council of the Yorkshire Board of Education, and the only ‘lady member of the Leeds School Board’, Catherine Buckton was a Unitarian and the wife of a local wool merchant and manufacturer. She had been delivering lecture courses for her fellow townswomen and ‘working sisters’ on a variety of health and sanitary topics for several years, including warning against the dangers of alcoholism, and advocating the benefits of vaccination. In 1875 some of these were published as ‘Health in the House. Twenty Five lectures on elementary physiology’, a work which was to prove immensely popular, going through several editions and subsequently being printed in Toronto. Clearly a passionate and indomitable woman, she here turns her attention to providing a ‘scheme of cookery’ in the hope of inducing in her young female charges ‘a love of cleanliness, personal neatness, and order; to give practical instruction; and to offer every aid to the girls and their parents to practise the lessons thus taught them in their own home’ (p. v).
The lessons were given fortnightly and lasted for an hour and a half. Printed recipes were provided to the girls, which could then be taken home and repeated. A founder of the Yorkshire School of Cookery, she states that eight cookery centres had been established in Leeds to provide instruction, though all based in simple classrooms, rather than specialised kitchens. Bearing in mind that the girls would most likely be living in one room with a large family, the need to teach the principles of neatness and order when cooking in a small space was considered a virtue. Indeed several clever space-saving devices are illustrated - including the cookery cupboard housing the stove, and all necessary utensils - the doors of which were designed to be removed and then used as a work surface for food preparation. The work is divided into nineteen lessons, including chapters on bread making, roasting, cooking for the sick and invalids, on soups and stocks, the end of each ‘lesson’ concluding with a series of questions to be answered at home as well as a recipe. The four full-page engravings, two of which are ‘from photographs’ depict the girls at their studies, a typical kitchen grate, and the adaptable storage cupboard.
At the same time, Buckton was also encouraging the girls to develop an interest in horticulture, and published ‘Town and Window Gardening’ (1879), once again based upon a series of lectures given to the children. Such was the success of the scheme that the School Board arranged for a Flower Show to be held, in which more than a thousand children competed. Crawford, The Women's Suffrage Movement in Britain and Ireland: A Regional Survey, p. 57.

1853. 12mo, pp. 188; with 42 small text engravings, and engraved tail-pieces; lightly browned and foxed throughout; without the final free endpaper; with library stamp of the ‘Sunday School of Olney St Church, Providence, R.I.’ on title-page and sporadically throughout; contemporary inscription on front free endpaper; Uncommon second expanded American edition (first American, 1851 as ‘Every-day wonders; or facts in physiology’), of this appealing work for children, which, although anonymous, we believe to be the work of the English authoress, Anne Bullar (1813-1856).
According to Atwater the first American edition was published in Boston in 1851 by Phillips, Sampson & Co., and was a reprint from the London 1850. We believe that that 1850 edition was one of a number of instructional works for children written anonymously by Bullar and published by John van Voorst. A publisher’s advertisement for Voorst found in Paley’s 1858 second edition of ‘A Manual of Gothic Mouldings’, ascribes the work to her, together with ‘Domestic Scenes in Greenland and Iceland’ (1844), ‘England before the Norman Conquest’ (1851), and ‘Sunday Book for the Young’ (1855) - none of which are ascribed to her by either OCLC or COPAC. The preface to the present work is almost identical to that of the 1850 work, although a paragraph has been added at the end to say that ‘nearly one-third of the matter of the present edition of this popular volume has been contributed by a distinguished member of the medical profession in the United States, and the whole work has been carefully revised for permanent usefulness’. Three chapters have been added, but by and large the work is largely the same.
It proved popular, and a third edition was published in England in 1862, though under the variant title ‘Every-day wonders of bodily life’ and now ascribed to Bullar. Aside from the Voorst advertisement, we have so far found no other source acknowledging her role as author for the work. Atwater 1095 (first American edition of 1851); copies located at the Library Company of Philadelphia, Harvard, Yale, Rochester, UCSF, Oklahoma, and Houston.

1870. Single sheet, 330 x 425; neat manuscript seemingly in a single hand, mathematical table on recto only within double ruled and hand-coloured border, with attractive and decorative calligraphic title and compass at head, and with contemporary name (presumably that of creator) in manuscript within a red ruled rectangular box at tail; a number of previous horizontal and vertical folds visible, with some slightly staining along left margin, four neat tape repairs to verso, evidence that perhaps once folded and mounted within a bound volume perhaps. A rare survivor, and most appealing example of this famous educational aid - a multiplication table or ‘table of Pythagorus’. Attributed to the ancient Greek mathematician, the table appears to have been first brought to public attention by the Greco-Roman mathematician Nichomachus in his first century work ‘Introduction to Arithmetic’ (Introducio arithmeticae), though earlier Greek and Babylonian examples exist on wax tablets. This striking example in manuscript appears to be the work of Jules Guibourgeaud, presumably a teacher, and no doubt for use in a classroom.

1885. Small 12mo, pp. 32; with small portrait of Dr Williams on title page with a number of small woodcut illustrations; together with printed envelope, folding order form, and stamped addressed envelope to a customer; slightly foxed; The medicated pads were apparently discovered in Brazil by Professor V. G Williams of New York, the formulas for which passed into the hands of his son Percy G Williams in 1879. ‘Our pads are not only a cushion of medicine, each one made expressly to act upon the different organs, over which they are worn, but they contain in addition to this a simple but effective miniature electro-galvanic battery. This is acted upon by the drugs in the pad, and thus for the first time in the history of medicine a constant mild flow of electricity is constantly kept up without friction or the application of acids’ (p. 6). Illustrated are appliances for the chest, the liver and stomach, the kidney’s, a ladies pad or uterine appliance, and a ‘suspensory appliance ... a positive and unfailing cure for seminal weakness’.

1879. 8vo, pp [4] pamphlet printed in red, black and gilt, 255 x 168mm, together with accompanying, seemingly hand-written though possibly facsimile, two-sided letter on headed paper 285 x 216mm, and with original stamped envelope 90 x 155mm; pamphlet and letter with evidence of previous horizontal and vertical folds, envelope a little soiled and stained. A most striking pamphlet, partially printed in gilt, promoting one of a number of electro-galvanic appliances offered by this noted firm. First patented in the US in 1853 by the Viennese Doctor, Isaac Lewis Pulvermacher, (though previously demonstrated in both London and Edinburgh), the "electric belt" was a battery-powered flexible series of linked cells worn wrapped around parts of the body as a form of the new medical treatment called "electrotherapy". It became particularly popular with quack practitioners, though received considerable criticism from the medical establishment, though some respectable physicians (whose names were sometimes used in Company ads without permission) had to admit that the Belt had some scientific usefulness. The Chain battery here advertised was yet another device, which could be used in conjunction with the belt and a suspensory appliance for the specific treatment of ‘impotence’. The various bands, belts and battery sets were advertised for cases of nervous debility, lost energy, spermatorrhoea, female complaints, epilepsy, paralysis, kidney disease and ‘other chronic disorders’.
We believe the accompanying letter to be hand-written - though there is a hint of a facsimile about it and it does feel rather like a form letter - supported by the stamped note on the rear that ‘Owing to the vast extent of our business and the necessity for a routine of departments, all Letters of Advice are dictated by our Examining Electrician to his associates, and then referred to our mailing department, there to be addressed and dispatched by our Corresponding Secretary’. See Atwater 2899-2902.

1702. 12mo, pp. [iv] including first blank, 168, [8]; with engraved plan signed L. Loisel pasted to the margin of the final leaf as a throwout; plate shaved at top and bottom; some light marginal browning and soiling; The very rare first edition of Félibien’s description of the new church for the Invalides by Jules Hardouin Mansart, replacing Bruant’s original church. Félibien’s illustrated folio Description de l'eglise royale des invalides was published when the church was consecrated in 1706. At the same time this 12mo was re-issued with a second part ‘Contenant les peinture, & divers autres ornements’ and the engravings from the folio. Berlin 2486 and 2487 citing the 1706 editions only; OCLC records only copies at the Conservatoire National des arts et métiers and the BN (bound with the second part, 1706). The 1706 re-issue is found at the BN, CNAM, Göttingen, V&A, Getty, Duke, Princeton and Columbia.

1901. Two volumes, large 8vo; pp. [iv], 736, [ii], 737-1050; [ii], 1051-1653, [3] blank, [ii] part title-page ‘Modes of Treatment’, [1657]-1760, [ii],1761-1776, [ii], 1777-1840, [ii], 1841-2074; with folding male mannikin with flaps together with accompanying folding explanatory leaf at front of Vol I, and folding female mannikin with flaps together with explanatory leaf in Vol II, folding leaf at rear of Vol I containing 7 illustrations with flaps on the anatomy of the nose, ear, eye, larynx, lungs, heart, and head, with folding frontispiece ’Distinguished exponents and protectors of the Natural Healing Method’, double-page chromolithograph showing Bilz’ Sanatorium embellised in gilt, and sepia lithograph portrait of the author, and with a further 30 chromolithograph plates (one double-page), and copious text illustrations; double-page frontispiece somewhat browned with long vertical tape repair, and chipping to outer edge, portrait and first few leaves of Vol II also with edgewear and chipping; printed on rather poor paper quality thus browned and somewhat foxed and soiled throughout, with some marginal browning to the plates; with later signature dated 1905 on half-titles; A later English edition, testimony to its enduring popularity, of Bilz’ ‘Das neue Naturheilverfahren’ (first English 1898), and which was eventually translated into 12 languages. A striking piece of late Victorian bookmaking, and illustrative of the rise in popular medical publishing, the work is copiously illustrated including a number of ‘flap’ illustrations, together with chromolithographs depicting everything from poisonous mushrooms and medicinal herbs to gymnastics and swimming. Though in the present copy repaired, the set also includes the striking double-page chromolithograph depiction of Bilz’ Sanatorium, seemingly not always present, together with an interesting folding plate highlighting a number of leading exponents of the ‘Natural Method of Healing’. The second volume includes quite detailed discussions of the facilities available at the Sanatorium. A note has been added at the bottom of the depiction of the Sanatorium stating ‘High award at the Jubilee Exhibition, Vienna, 1898’.

1900. Two volumes, large 8vo; pp. [ii], iv, 48, [ii] explanatory leaf, 49-672, [ii] explanatory leaf, 673-1040; Vol II. pp. [ii], 1041-1584, [ii] explanatory leaf, 1585-1683, [i] blank, [ii] sectional title on thicker paper ‘Formes d’application de la médication naturelle’, [1685]-1712, [ii] explanatory leaf, 1713-1744, [ii] explanatory leaf, 1745-1808, [ii] explanatory leaf, 1809-1872, [ii] explanatory leaf, 1873-1904, [ii] explanatory leaf, 1905-2080; Vol I with multi-layered folding male mannikin with flaps together with accompanying folding explanatory leaf of text at beginning, a folding leaf containing 7 ‘flap’ anatomical illustrations of the nose, ear, eye, larynx, lungs, heart at the rear, a folding lithograph plate showing portraits of eminent holistic physicians, a double-page frontispiece chromolithograph of the Sanatorium embellished in gilt, and sepia lithograph frontispiece portrait of Bilz, Vol II with a multi-layered folding female mannikin with accompanying folding explanatory leaf at front and single chromolithograph plate with flaps depicting a foetus in the womb at rear, with 30 chromolithograph plates throughout the text, together with copious text diagrams and engravings; paper somewhat browned throughout due to quality, with a few small marginal nicks, sectional title-page in Vol II worn and chipped along fore-edge; A variant French edition, testimony to its enduring popularity, of Bilz’ ‘Das neue Naturheilverfahren’ (first German ca. 1888, first English 1898), and which was eventually translated into 12 languages. This French edition has a variant double-page frontispiece depiction of the Sanatorium to that found in the English edition, as well as containing variant plates, although the text is largely the same. Another French issue under the variant title of ‘La Santé à la portée de tous’ was published at a similar time - again with variant plates. A testimony, perhaps, to the entrepreneurial Bilz’ taking full advantage of the advances in popular publishing, and the demand for comprehensive domestic medical guides.

1891. 8vo, pp.xii, 321, [1] blank, [2] advertisements for works by Alphonse Daudet; with 42 engraved vignettes; paper a little browned and spotted throughout due to quality, rear endpaper partially detached, both somewhat foxed and browend; First London edition, (first published as L’Hypnotisme’ in the previous year, with a Philadelphia imprint also in 1891) of this vigorous defence of hypnotism, by the physician-hypnotist and one of the pioneers of electrotherapy and radiography, Victor Foveau de Courmelles (1862-1943), and who only two years previously had been Vice-President of the International Magnetic Congress for the Study and Application of Human Magnestism to the Relief and Care of the Sick, held between 21-26 October 1889 in Paris. Courmelles asserts that a more widespread adoption of artificially induced sleep would be great medical benefit, and indeed in his preface cites the case of a young woman, who during an ‘acute attack of nervous suffocation’ was subjected to the trauma of a tracheotomy: ‘had he simply induced artificial sleep, her breathing would at once have resumed its normal condition’ (p. viii). Amongst the striking illustrations we are shown 'Mesmer's Tub', 'Puysegur's Tree' and numerous hypnotic subjects in various states including one full page image of woman with rigid catalepsy between two chairs.

1879. Small folio, pp. 12, [2]; with two chromolithograph plates, comprising seven figures; text and plates a little foxed and spotted; First edition of this uncommon and attractively illustrated treatise on deformations of the pelvis by the obstetrician and gynaecologist Heinrich Fritsch, at the time of writing Extraordinary Professor at Halle University (1844-1915). Some of his early training had been spent at the obstetrical clinic of Robert Michel von Olshausen (1835-1915), to whom he dedicates the present work. He subsequently became a full professor and director of the obstetrical clinic in Breslau in 1883, later taking up a position in Bonn. Fritsch was an excellent physician and operator whose work concerns all fields of obstetrics and gynaecology. As a highly regarded clinical teacher he is credited with having educated a generation of acclaimed obstetricians and gynaecologists, including Hermann Johannes Pfannenstiel (1862-1909), Erwin Kehrer (born 1874), and Walter Stoeckel (1871-1961). In 1894 he provided an early description of "Asherman's syndrome", and his name is associated with "Fritsch's manipulation", an obstetric compression technique used for controlling bleeding. In 1877, with Hermann Fehling (1847-1925), he founded the gynaecological journal Zentralblatt für Gynäkologie.
In the present treatise, Fritsch makes frequent reference to the work of Carl Litzmann, who also wrote a number of works on the female pelvis and its anomalies, notably Die formen des beckens in 1861. OCLC locates one copy at Chicago only.

1860.]. Large decorative card box with hinged lid, 345 x 445 x 65mm, interior compartmentalised, with large central box with gilt paper surround housing a wooden roulette wheel, decorated in red and blue and numbered 1 to 24, surrounded by 24 smaller rectangular boxes, each lined with cotton wool, and each containing a small ornate ‘prize’ objects of made from various substances, including wood, glass, ceramic, metal, bone, mother-of-pearl, and lace, and with original silk pouch retaining the metal roulette ball, and 24 red presumably bone tokens, each numbered (number 1 seemingly a later replacement of metal); roulette wheel a little faded, all of the ‘prizes’ delicate and fragile, with a number showing signs of wear, with some occasional loss and two broken, but all present; A wonderful and no doubt extremely rare survivor, especially complete as here, of this family parlour game of ‘Tombola’, dating from the mid to late 19th century.
Originating in Italy in the 18th century, the game of ‘Tombola’ was traditionally a board game similar to bingo. Here the board has been replaced by a central roulette wheel, numbered 1 to 24. Presumably a family member would be elected as ‘croupier’, with players either drawing from the bag, or being dealt, one or more of the red numbered tokens, depending upon the number of players. The ball would then be thrown onto the spinning wheel, with the owner of the corresponding number receiving a prize. Whether this was first-come-first serve, or whether the prizes were themselves numbered, is not clear. The twenty-four small objects, however, have all been intricately made and are most charming, even though some are showing understandable signs of wear. Prizes include two wooden boxed sets of dominoes, a small worked metal box, a pocket magnifying glass inlaid with mother-of-pearl (though missing to edging pieces), an embroidered doily, a ceramic candle holder in the shape of a leaf, a pair of cufflinks, a pair of turquoise earrings (again showing signs of wear), two sets of bone skittles, a faux tortoise-shell box containing a ring, two painted ceramic boxes, two small glass candleholders with fake candles (both of which have broken off), a miniature mother-of-pearl penknife, and a delightful trinket in the shape of a metal goat pulling a mother-of-pearl shell carriage. A delightful ‘box of delights’, transporting us back to halcyon days of family games evening - and perfect for the new lock down world.
We have so far been unable to find any similar surviving examples, and can find no further information about either the lithographer Marie, nor the artist, M. A. Mourgue. The publisher Coqueret was active from about 1846 and produced a variety of games, including a number of lotto games, until about 1875, when he was succeeded by Charles Watilliaux.

(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.