Les oeuvres de . . . Avec les figures & portraicts tant de l'anatomie que des instruments de chirurgie . . .
Publisher Information: Paris: Gabriel Buon, 1575.
Paré, Ambroise (1510[?] – 1590). Les oeuvres de M. Ambroise Paré conseiller, et premier chirurgien du roi. Avec les figures & portraicts tant de l’anatomie que des instruments de chirurgie, & de plusieurs monstres. Folio. [20], 945, [45], [2, blank]pp. Woodcut title border, woodcut portrait and 295 woodcut illustrations. Paris: Gabriel Buon, 1575. 351 x 223 mm. Slightly later full paneled calf, repaired and laid down over later boards, spine label renewed, light wear. Neat repair to title-leaf not affecting the printed area, early owner’s name partly eradicated from leaf a1 slightly affecting a few letters on the verso, light toning, a few insignificant marginal tears, but a very good copy with the terminal blank Oo4 present. “M. Gilbertus Moncrifius” tooled in gilt on the front and back covers, early ownership inscription “Da: Mitchell” on the title.
First Edition of Paré’s collected works, representing the greatest and most influential book in Renaissance surgery, and the first original surgical writing in Europe since the Middle Ages. The first edition has been rare on the market for many decades.
"This splendid folio, the darling of Paré’s heart, was at once the culmination of its author’s naïve hopes to place surgery in its rightful place among the arts, to put the understanding of it within reach of the humblest barber-surgeon, and to confound his own enemies . . . Its manner of conception and the renown of its author made it, from its first appearance, the surgical code of its era. Malgaigne calls it the first real surgical treatise since Guy de Chauliac; the latter was still writing under Arabian influence, while Paré brought in the new experimental spirit of the Renaissance" (Doe, p. 104).
Paré’s innovations in treatment are extraordinarily comprehensive, ranging from his opposition to boiling oil in gunshot wounds and ligature instead of cautery in amputations to his revival of podalic version in obstetrics. He popularized the truss in hernia, and ushered in the modern age of prostheses and brace-making, using armorers, whose trade was disappearing with the advent of gunpowder, to manufacture his devices. “Paré used rope and windlass traction for femoral fractures and was able to distinguish hip dislocation from fracture of the femoral neck. He confirmed the cord compression in vertebral fractures that had been recognized by the Egyptians and Hippocrates . . . Paré used appliances and methods rather like those of Hippocrates for reducing hip and shoulder dislocations, and one or two special to himself. He describes displacement of the ‘appendices’ (i.e. epiphyses) of the long bones, to be restored if deformity is to be avoided, and reduced neck dislocations by manipulation and traction . . .” (Le Vay, History of Orthopedics, pp. 224-25; also 222-230). Paré anticipated Andry in pointing out the role of bad posture in scoliosis, was the first to use corsets to correct spinal deformities, and invented boots for clubfoot. Doe, Bibliography of the Works of Ambroise Paré, no. 29. Garrison-Morton.com 5565.
Book Id: 46768Price: $30,000.00