Skip to content
Skip to main content

Notes from the John Martin Rare Book Room, July 2014: Nathaniel Highmore

Nathaniel Highmore (1613-1685) Corporis Humani Disquisitio Anatomica The Hague: Ex oficina Samuelis Brown, 1651. [Image via Fisher Library Digital Collections, University of Toronto]. Nathaniel Highmore of Dorset, England was a British surgeon known for his 1651 treatise on anatomy, the first of its kind to give an accurate account of the circulatory system. Highmore studiedContinue reading “Notes from the John Martin Rare Book Room, July 2014: Nathaniel Highmore”

Elements of the Practice of Medicine

Notes from the John Martin Rare Book Room June, 2014 RICHARD BRIGHT (1789-1858) and THOMAS ADDISON (1793-1860). Elements of the practice of medicine. London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1839. [ezcol_1half] [/ezcol_1half] [ezcol_1half_end]This rare work represents a joint undertaking by two of the most famous physicians in nineteenth-century Europe. The preface describes it asContinue reading “Elements of the Practice of Medicine”

Notes from the John Martin Rare Book Room, May 2014: Jean Étienne Dominique Esquirol

Jean Étienne Dominique Esquirol (1772-1840) Des maladies mentales considérées sous les rapports médical, hygiénique et médicolégal. 2 vols. Brussels : J.B. Tircher, 1838. Esquirol’s drawing of an inmate of Bethlem Hospital. As Pinel’s most outstanding pupil, Esquirol so closely followed his teacher’s works that the contributions of the two men are sometimes confused. Like Pinel, EsquirolContinue reading “Notes from the John Martin Rare Book Room, May 2014: Jean Étienne Dominique Esquirol”

The Father of Biomechanics: Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, 1680-1681

Borelli. [Image via wikipedia.org] Giovanni Alfonso Borelli (1608-1679) was an Italian Renaissance physicist who sought to make mechanical laws applicable to all physiological phenomena. Borelli, who studied at Padua under Galileo, regarded the human body essentially as a machine whose functions could be explained by the laws of physics. He mentored Marcello Malpighi– who wentContinue reading “The Father of Biomechanics: Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, 1680-1681”

Ibn Butlan’s Tacuini Sanitatis (1531)

Image via the guardian.com, credit Royal Society This images are from a 14th century translation of Arabic doctor Ibn Butlan, who died circa 1068. Butlan’s title roughly translates to “health report.” The report addresses the impact of nature, emotional states, daily life, and meteorological conditions on health. Butlan wrote that his book concerned “the sixContinue reading “Ibn Butlan’s Tacuini Sanitatis (1531)”

Notes from the John Martin Rare Book Room, 2014

BERNHARD SIEGFRIED ALBINUS (1697-1770). Tabulae sceleti et musculorum corporis humani. Leiden:  1747 This work is perhaps the most monumental and finest anatomical atlas ever published. The plates, although probably derived from Vesalius, were drawn with painstaking accuracy by Wandelaer and are dated between 1739 and 1747. Albinus described in his preface the methods used inContinue reading “Notes from the John Martin Rare Book Room, 2014”

Notes from the John Martin Rare Book Room, November 2013

Notes from the John Martin Rare Book Room, November, 2013 GASPARE TAGLIACOZZI (1545-1599). De curtorum chirurgia per insitionem, libri duo. Venice: 1597. Tagliacozzi was professor of surgery and anatomy at Bologna. This work, “Concerning the surgery of the mutilated by grafting,” is a classic in the history of plastic surgery and is especially noteworthy forContinue reading “Notes from the John Martin Rare Book Room, November 2013”