Milestones of Science Books

WILLIS, Thomas.

Diatribae duae medico-philosophicae: Quarum prior agit de fermentatione, sive de motu intestino particularum in quovis corpore; altera de febribus, sive de motu earundem in sanguine animalium / Pathologiae Cerebri, Et Nervosi Generis Specimen: In quo agitur de Morbis Convulsivis, Et De Scorbuto.

Amsterdam: Gerbrandus Schagen / Daniel Elzevir, 1663.

4th Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Item #003311

I. Diatribae duae medico-philosophicae: Quarum prior agit de fermentatione, sive de motu intestino particularum in quovis corpore; altera de febribus, sive de motu earundem in sanguine animalium. His accessit dissertatio epistolica de urinis. . . Amsterdam: Gerbrandus Schagen, 1663. [32], 376 pp., including engraved additional title (shaved at foot), woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces. [Bound with II:] WILLIS, Thomas. Pathologiae Cerebri, Et Nervosi Generis Specimen: In quo agitur de Morbis Convulsivis, Et De Scorbuto. Amsterdam: Daniel Elzevir, 1668. [12], 338, [22] pp. Engraved portrait of the author on leaf *6v, woodcut printer's device on general title, sections with individual running titles, woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces, final blank Q6. 12mo (132 x 75 mm). Bound in contemporary Dutch vellum, yapp edges, spine ink lettered and with printed ownership paper label (vellum soiled and rubbed). Text with little even browning, minor occasional spotting. Provenance: Guillois, Paris (spine label); illegible inscription on first flyleaf. Very good copy in untouched binding. ----

I. Heirs of Hippocrates 537, NLM/Krivatsy 13025; Garrison-Norman 2464 (1st ed.). Fourth edition of Willis' first book, a collection of tracts on fermentation, fevers, and urine, originally published in London 1659. The first text "contains the earliest suggestion that fermentation is an intestinal or internal motion of particles" (Garrison-Morton); the second contains the first description of epidemic typhoid; and the third notes the sweet taste of urine in diabetes mellitus.
II. McHenry, p. 58; NLM/Krivatsy 13032; Wellcome V, p.444; Heirs of Hippocrates 539 (2nd Amsterdam ed.); Willems 1401. RARE SECOND AND FIRST CONTINENTAL EDITION, published just one year after the first edition (Oxford). Willis followed up his anatomical account of the brain with this important work on its pathology and neurophysiology, first published in 1667. In it he develops a new theory of the cause of epilepsy and other convulsive diseases. McHenry refers to this work as one of the earliest textbooks on nervous diseases "renowned for its striking clinical pictures, especially of general paresis." This work also contains Willis' monograph on convulsive disorders and scurvy. Willis' superb training in clinical medicine and close observation was never more evident than in this work where one sees this brilliant 17th-century mind attacking areas of clinical sciences never before studied. "The most complete and accurate account of the nervous system which had hitherto appeared. Willis's classification of the cerebral nerves held the field until the time of Soemmerring." - Visit our website to see more images!

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