Dissertatio de febribus biliosis
Publisher Information: Lausanne: Marci-Mic. Bousquet & Soc. 1758.
Tissot, Samuel Auguste André David (1728-97). Dissertatio de febribus biliosis; seu histori epidemiae biliosae . . . accredit tentamen de morbis ex manusturpratione. 8vo. xiv, 264pp. Lausanne: Marc-Michel Bousquet & Soc., 1758. 204 x 127 mm. 19th-century quarter morocco, marbled boards, vellum corners, light edgewear, 2 worn areas on spine, marbled paper a bit bubbled. Very good copy.
First Edition of Tissot’s notorious treatise on the dangers of masturbation, which forms the second part of the Dissertatio. According to Tissot, masturbation was responsible for a wide range of physical and psychological maladies including insanity, epilepsy, blindness, memory loss, impotence, vertigo and nymphomania; chronic masturbators could be distinguished by their “moist and clammy hands, stooped shoulders, pale sallow face with heavy, dark circles around the eyes, a ‘draggy’ gait, and acne” (Engelhardt, p. 6). Tissot’s book played an important role in shaping the medical and social perception of masturbation as a debilitating illness, a view that persisted into the 20th century. A separate edition in French, considerably augmented by the author, was published in 1760 under the title L’Onanisme; ou dissertation physique, sur les maladies produites par la masturbation, and the work went through numerous later editions and translations, including one in English published as Onanism; or a Treatise upon the Disorders Produced by Masturbation (1766). Engelhardt, “The disease of masturbation: Values and the concept of disease,” in Lindemann, ed., Meaning and Medicine: A Reader in the Philosophy of Health Care (1999), pp. 5-15. Garrison-Morton.com 10478.
Book Id: 44631Price: $1,500.00