Dedication copy to Marie de Fourtou, signed by the author

PASTEUR, Louis.

Études sur la maladie des Vers à Soie - Moyen pratique assuré de la combattre et d'en prévenir le retour.

Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1870.

1st Edition. Soft cover. Near Fine. Item #003282

Two volumes. 8vo (250 x 158 mm). xii, 322; [6], 327 [1] pp., including half title, photogravure frontispiece and 36 plates (13 helio-lithographed, 21 engraved and 2 photogravure) including 12 hand-colored in vol. I; half-title and 1 helio-lithographed plate in vol. II; some text illustrations diagrams and tables. Original printed wrappers, book entirely unopened and uncut (little dust-soiling and spotting of wrappers, very minor paper-chipping at spine ends and hinges, wrappers of vol. I slightly creased). Protected in custom slip-case. Text and plates crisp and clean with only very minor occasional spotting. Provenance: Gabriel Palus Ribérac (large bookplate to first free endpapers); slightly faded ink inscription and signature on half title of first volume by Louis Pasteur "A Monsieur de Fourtou / Ministre d. l'Inst. Publique(?) / hommage de l'authéur / L. Pasteur" to Marie de Fourtou*. An outstanding, completely unsophisticated association copy. ----

Norman 1657; Heirs of Hippocrates 1897; Sparrow 179; Garrison-M. 2481; Duveen 461; Osler 1549; DSB X, p.411. AUTHOR'S DEDICATION COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION. "Pasteur's five-year investigation of silkworm blight saved the afflicted French silk industry, which over the preceding twenty years had suffered a sixfold reduction. He discovered that pébrine and flacherie, previously thought to be different manifestations of the same silkworm disease, were in reality two separate afflictions, the first parasitic and the second environmental in origin. As both diseases are hereditary as well as contagious, Pasteur recommended discarding all infected eggs and pupae and controlling as far as possible the environmental conditions in silkworm hatcheries." (Norman 1657).
"The immediate practical results did not adequately express the far-reaching effects of this research, which marked the entry of Pasteur into the realm of animal pathology and could well be called the 'vestibule of modern medicine'" (Duveen).
*Marie François Oscar Bardi de Fourtou (3 January 1836 - 6 December 1897) was a French politician. Born into a bourgeois family, he served as Minister of Transport from 7 December 1872 to 18 May 1873. He also served as Minister of Interior and Minister of Public Instruction, in which he "carried out aggressively conservative policies by dismissing certain liberal professors and re-establishing censorship, collaborator of the Minister of Public Education, future senator from Dordogne and Minister (Wikisource). In fact, De Fourtou was a driving force to introduce a bill for granting Louis Pasteur a livelong pension in recognition of his achievements and services rendered. The National Assembly of France approved the law on August 3, 1875. See: Oscar Bardy de Fourtou, Projet de loi relatif a? la concession d'une pension a? M. Pasteur, membre de l'Acade?mie des sciences, de l'Institut de France, et professeur a? la Faculte? des sciences de Paris, pre?sente? par M. le mare?chal de Mac Mahon, duc de Magenta, ... par M. de Fourtou, ... et par M. Deseilligny, ... (28 mars 1874.). Versailles : Impr. de Cerf et Fils, Assemble?e nationale. 1874. N ° 2366, 29 pp. - Visit our website to see more images!

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