Milestones of Science Books

MORGAGNI, Giovanni Battista.

De sedibus, et causis morborum per anatomen indagatis libri quinque.

Venice: ex typographia Remondiniana, 1761.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine. Item #003856

Two parts in one volume. Folio (370 x 231 mm). xcvi, 298; 452 pp., including half-title, engraved portrait frontispiece in volume one, titles with engraved vignettes, woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces. Main-body text printed in two columns. Bound without blank leaf Oo6 at end of first part. Near contemporary calf, spine with 6 raised bands and gilt-lettered red morocco label in second compartment and some gilt tooling in the others, red-sprinkled edges, original endpapers (minor rubbing of extremities, corners slightly bumped). Text bright and clean throughout with only very little even age-toning, faint spotting to p.95 of part II. A near fine copy. Provenance: from a French private collection. ----

FIRST EDITION, SECOND ISSUE (with the titles printed in black only) of Morgagni's main work and ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOKS IN THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE. "Morgagni was the true founder of modern pathological anatomy" (Garrison-Morton). Morgagni, Professor of Anatomy at Padua, used evidence from his experience and records of some 700 post-mortem dissections, to establish a procedure of basing diagnosis and treatment on a detailed knowledge of the anatomical conditions of common diseases, i.e. a classification of symptoms rather than diseases.
"Theophilus Bonetus, in his Sepulchretum, Geneva, 1679, collected three thousand post mortem reports of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Morgagni found their brevity and inaccuracy unsatisfactory and began to compile written records of his own. This book, 'The Origins and Causes of Diseases anatomically investigated', contained reports on an extensive series of post mortems performed by himself, his teacher, Valsalva, and other members of his circle. By comparing the clinical symptoms with the post mortem findings Morgagni laid the foundations of pathological anatomy. The study of diseased organs finally ousted the old humoral pathology. Morgagni could not have succeeded in 'introducing the anatomical idea into medicine' (Virchow) without the advancement of physiology in the period immediately preceding him. There can be no knowledge of morbid symptoms without the knowledge of normal organ function - physiology. Morgagni's classification was thus one of symptoms rather than of diseases. The book includes a number of brilliant descriptions of new diseases, some of which have remained classics until our own day, particularly those of the heart, blood vessels, lungs and throat. He described syphiltic tumours (gummata) in the brain, recorded a case of heart-block (Stokes Adams disease), identified the clinical features of pneumonia with consolidation of the lungs, described lesions in angina pectoris, acute yellow atrophy of the liver, tuberculosis of the kidney, etc. Morgagni [...] systematized a branch of medicine hitherto studied in isolation and without method. Rudolf Virchow [...], one of the greatest of modem pathologists, acknowledged his indebtedness to Morgagni" (PMM).
References: PMM 206; Dibner 125; Norman 1547; Grolier Medicine 46; Heirs of Hippocrates 792; Wellcome IV, 178; Garrison-M. 2276; NLM/Blake 312; Osler 1178; Waller 6672. - Visit our website to see more images!

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