Milestones of Science Books

BOURDET, Etienne.

Recherches et Observations sur Toutes les Parties de l'Art du Dentiste. 2 volumes.

Paris: Jean-Thomas Herissant, 1757.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Item #002701

8vo (164 x 96 mm). xx, 310; [4], 333, [3] pp., including half-titles, woodcut device to title-pages, woodcut head- and tailpieces, 13 folding engraved plates, and publisher's adverts at end of vol. 2. Vol. 1 leaves L2-3 misbound within preliminaries and gathering Aa4 misbound before Z1. Bound in contemporary mottled calf, spines gilt and with red and brown morocco labels (corners bumped and worn, extremities rubbed), red-dyed edges, marbled endpapers. Light staining to top margin of first 9 leaves in vol. 2, tear in fold of plate 4 without loss, occasional minor spotting and light browning of text, but generally a crisp and clean copy. Provenance: Didier (signature to first flyleaf in each vol.). ----

NLM/Blake, p. 61; Garrison-M. 3673.1; Wellcome II, 213; Waller 10578. FIRST EDITION. "An excellent book on dentistry appeared in France in the year 1757, the work of Bourdet, a celebrated and elegant writer, in whom the gifts of literacy and scientific culture were coupled with a vast experience and a profound spirit of observation." (Guerini, History of Dentistry, Amsterdam, 1967, p. 309). "Bourdet's greatest contributions were to dental prosthetics. He also described severe periodontoclasia and his treatment of the condition similar to modern gingivectomy" (Garrison-M). "According to Bourdet, the teeth are so apt to decay, partly because of the frequent changes of temperature to which they are exposed, and partly because, differently from the bones, they are not provided with any protective organic covering. In many cases of caries, Bourdet extracted the tooth, filled it with lead or gold leaf, and replanted it; but if, in extracting, the alveolus had been injured, he replanted the tooth immediately, to preserve the alveolus from the damaging action of the air, and carried out the stopping at a later time. . . Bourdet made prosthetic pieces. . . but one of his principal merits is that of having brought artificial plates to perfection by fixing them not, as heretofore, to the opening of the palate or inside the nose, but by means of lateral clasps fitted to the teeth" (Guerini, History of Dentistry, Amsterdam, 1967, pp. 309-10).

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