Milestones of Science Books

MAGNI, Pietro Paolo.

Discorsi intorno al sanguinar i corpi humani il modo di ataccare le sanguisuche e ventose a far frittioni e vesicatorii.

Rome: Bartolomeo Bonfadino & Tito Diani, 1584.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Item #003615

4to (226 x 164 mm). [12], 106, [2] pp., including engraved title within architectural border, 11 fine full-page engraved illustrations, text diagram, woodcut initials and headpieces, final leaf with colophon and errata. Signatures: ?6 A-M4 N6. 18th-century mottled calf, spine with 5 raised bands, tooled in gilt and ruled in blind, marbled endpapers (expertly rebacked, rubbed, extremities a trifle chipped, corners worn). Lower edge titled in ink. Text and plates only very little browned, some minor dust- and finger-soiling to outer margins, engraved title mounted on stub. Provenance: Robert J. Moes* (bookplate to front pastedown). A very good copy. ----

Mortimer, Italian II, 267; Cushing M78; Waller 6142; NLM/Durling 2905; Wellcome I, 3959; not in Norman lib. RARE FIRST EDITION of Magni's treatise on the art of bloodletting and the use of leeches in therapeutic medicine, containing eleven superb engravings by Adamo Ghisi, an artist of the school of Marcantonio Raimondi. The plates depict scenes of the many places on the human body which may be used for bloodletting (e.g., forehead, under the tongue, arms, legs, ball of the foot and other areas).
Magni, an Italian surgeon of Piacenza, was a practitioner of phlebotomy and wrote this treatise as well as on cautery. This is the only edition to have the artist's name on the title. Later editions appear to attribute the illustrations to other artists. Bloodletting has been practiced for thousands of years and has been utilized in the attempt to cure almost every ailment known to mankind. Its popularity as a therapeutic technique has waxed and waned over the centuries and it has often been the focal point of great controversy. Phlebotomy reached its zenith during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and then began to decline as the principles of scientific medicine became firmly established. Today, bloodletting has nearly disappeared but is echoed in the development of plasmapheresis and is still recognized as a treatment for polycythemia and hemochromatosis.
This first edition is very rare. According to American Book Prices Current, only one complete copy has sold at auction in the last 40 years.
*Robert J. Moes, M.D. was a physician who served as an ambulance and police surgeon for several years in Los Angeles, before becoming head of the emergency medical division of the Los Angeles Citizens Defense Corps during World War II. He was an avid bibliophile who prowled downtown Los Angeles bookshops while a resident at the old California Lutheran Hospital, Moes at his death had accumulated hundreds of books on anatomy. - Visit our website to see more images!

Price: 7,500 €  *  convert currency