Milestones of Science Books

FABRICI, Girolamo (FABRICIUS AB AQUAPENDENTE, Hieronymus).

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

Padua: Antonii Meglietti, 1625.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Good. Item #002156

5 parts in one volume. Folio (414x273 mm). General title of second state with engraved printer's device (soiled and torn w/o loss), [2], 150, [2] pp, 32 (of 34) plates; 68, [2] pp., 7 plates; 27, [3] pp.; [2], 23 pp., 8 plates (1 double page); 27, [1] pp., 1 plate. In total 48 (of 50) engraved plates including twelve double-page ; de formato foetu w/o separate title and lacking 2 leaves D2/3 with full-page engraving to verso of each, engraving to K4 recto a duplicate of K2 (as called for), tears to plates (with minor loss to R4); De formatione ovi et pulli w/o separate title, tears to plates w/o loss; de brutorum loquela w/o separate title, dedication and final blank; de venarum ostiolis with separate title dated 1603 (Patavia: Lorenzo Pasquati), with tears to A4, B1, C1, C2, D4 (with loss to B1, C1 and D4), without the phrase « Superiorum Permissu » at the end of the text of p.22; de locutione w/o separate title, lacking synopsis and index leaves, D1/2 torn with loss affecting engravings to verso, library stamp to title and plates, some soiling, minor marginal dampstaining and marginal closed tears and other defects, Birmingham Medical Library bookplate to front pastedown, contemporary vellum, heavily soiled and worn, split along upper joint from head to foot. ----

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).

On Hold