Milestones of Science Books

FABRICI, Girolamo (FABRICIUS AB AQUAPENDENTE, Hieronymus).

Opera physica anatomica: de formato foetu, de venarum ostiolis, de formatione ovi et pulli, de locutione et eius instrumentis, de brutorum loquela.

Padua: Roberti Meglietti, 1625.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Item #002155

5 parts in one volume. Folio (415x265 mm). General title of first state with engraved printer's device, [4], 150, [2] pp, 34 plates (including unnumbered plate on verso of plate XI, 11 double page); 23 [1] pp., 8 plates (1 double page); 68, [2] pp., 7 plates (including 4 unnumbered bound at the end); 27, [5] pp., 1 plate; 27, [3] pp. In total 50 engraved plates including twelve double-page; some soiling, this issue without the separate part title-pages found in some copies, minor marginal dampstaining, some plates creased, a few old paper repairs to page margins. Contemporary vellum over boards, flat spine richly gilt, red lettering piece (boards soiled), red-dyed edges, contemporary ownership inscription at head of title-page (possibly French), and inside front cover of the great chemist John Dalton. Fine, complete copy. ----

NLM/Krivatsy 3804/3831 ; Norman 750 ; Wellcome I, 2126 ; Waller 2886 ; Hirsch-H. II, 460 ff. ; Grolier Medicine 27b ; Franklin, « Valves in veins : An historical survey, » Proc. Roy. Soc. Medicine 21 (1927), pp.1-33 - Important first collected edition, very rare. Fabrici's best known and most important medical work is his classic monograph on the venous valves, De venarum ostiolis, firt published in Padua in 1603 and reissued with four other works in 1625 under the general title 'Opera anatomica' and 'Opera physica anatomica,' respectively. This tract, published originally as an unbound folio pamphlet consisting of 23 pages of text and 8 engr. Plates, has been described as one of the rarest and most beautiful works in the history of anatomical illustrations. Among the plates is the well-known depiction of the surface anatomy of the veins of the forearm that William Harvey adapted to illustrate his De motu cordis. Although Fabrici did not fully appreciate the functional significance of the venous valves, hist work was a crucial precursor of Harvey's discovery. As Harvey told the British physicist and chemist Robert Boyle, i twas his recognition of the significance of Fabrici's observations and his own realization of the function of the venous valves that led him to conceptualize the circulation of the blood (Grolier, Medicine, p.104).
This copy from John Dalton's library. 'Dalton's own collection eventually contained no less than 700 volumes, largely but by no means solely restricted to science.' (DSB III, p.546).

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