University Libraries

An Anatomical Work of Uncommon Beauty

Bourgery, Marc Jean (1797-1849). Traité complet de l’anatomie de l’homme, comprenant la médecine opératoire. 8 vols. Paris, 1831-1854.
Paule Dumaitre in his Histoire de la médecine et du livre medical (Paris, 1978) commented that Bourgery’s work is considered today without question the most beautiful French work of anatomy published in 19th century. It is also without question one of the most beautifully illustrated anatomical and surgical treatises ever published in any language. The 726 hand-colored lithographs were executed after drawings by Nicolas Henri Jacob (1781-1871), a pupil of David. Jacob made his drawings from dissections and other anatomical preparations, some of which were prepared by Claude Bernard (see Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1792 ff.). One of the activities Bernard undertook in 1845, most likely to compensate for income lost when he resigned as Magendie’s student assistant, was to prepare dissections for Jacob. Although he is not recognized as a contributor, drawings made from some of his preparations appear in this first edition. Bourgery studied medicine at Paris where he interned under Laennec and Dupuytren and won gold medals for excellence from the Paris faculty of medicine and hospital administration. After ten years as health officer at Romilly, Bourgery returned to Paris to continue his career in anatomy and surgery. In addition to the present work he prepared an earlier illustrated anatomy and contributed a number of papers to the medical journals of his day. Bourgery divided his treatise into four parts which covered descriptive anatomy, surgical anatomy and techniques, general anatomy, and embryology and microscopic anatomy. Four volumes of the set are devoted to surgical anatomy and cover in detail nearly all the major operations that were performed during the first half of the nineteenth century. The University of Iowa Libraries’ copy lacks Planche 85 in Volume IV (lymphatics of the axilla).

Heirs of Hippocrates Now Online

We are pleased to announce that the book catalog, “Heirs of Hippocrates” last published in 1990 (3^rd edition), is now available as an online database and offered to the public on the internet at no charge.

“Heirs” is an annotated bibliography of the historic books in the John Martin Rare Book Room and has become a source of authority for antiquarian book dealers, librarians, bibliographers, historians, and collectors from around the world.

This new product is the result of the labor of many individuals, most notably, Linda Roth, Hardin Library’s Web Producer (please see the About Heirs Online for further acknowledgements).

The online version is much more than the full text of the book; although it can be browsed, the content has been entered in the form of a database to allow for precision searching and quick recall.

We invite you to take a look at this new and important scholarly contribution to the history of medicine and printing.

http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/hardin/heirsonline

Extreme Makeovers From The Sixteenth Century

Tagliacozzi, Gaspare (1545-1599). De curtorum chirurgia per insitionem, libri due. Venice, 1597.

Although Tagliacozzi was not the first plastic surgeon (it had been practiced in India centuries earlier) he is usually credited as the first modern practitioner of the art. Loss of facial parts from dueling, street fights, and syphilis were common during the 16^th century. His work covers the anatomy of the nose and includes sections on the restoration of the nose, lips, and ears by means of autografting; it is replete with stunning engravings illustrating the techniques and instruments used in the various procedures. The popularity of the work caused it to be plagiarized almost immediately. However, Tagliacozzi’s work was opposed on religious grounds by such authorities as Paré and Fallopius and condemned by the church whose authorities exhumed his body and reburied it in unconsecrated ground.

Judging By Appearances

Porta, Giovanni Battista Della (1535?-1615).
De humana physiognomonia libri III. , Naples, 1586.

The practice of attempting to discern personality traits from physical appearance goes back to antiquity. In fact, it was Aristotle who coined the term, “physiognomy” to support his own writings and inclinations on the subject. Since that time and until quite recently, the notion that character and personality are somehow imprinted in facial features has received considerable attention through a variety of approaches, many of which have been used for such nefarious purposes as racial stereotyping and the outright support of bigotry and racial superiority.

Porta was a Neapolitan philosopher, inventor, botanist, and playwright whose range of interest appeared to have no bounds. His scientific work set him at odds with the church from time to time and many of his books were banned during his lifetime. Porta posited the belief that human qualities can be discovered by noting similarities between human and animal visages. The work is made especially intriguing by the numerous wood-cut illustrations that correlate animal and human facial features.

A Withering Glance at Foxglove

Withering, William (1741-1799). An Account of the foxglove, and some of its medical uses, Birmingham, 1785.

William Withering was a keen observer of plants and their medicinal uses and had already published a widely respected and comprehensive treatise on “Botanical Arrangement of all the vegetables” when this, his most famous work was printed. A graduate of the University of Edinburgh and later appointed an early physician to General Hospital, he noted the success of a complex herbal folk recipe in the treatment of “dropsy” (cardiac edema). Withering isolated the active component as the dried leaf of the foxglove (Digitalis purpura) which had been used indiscriminately (mostly as a diuretic) for centuries. It was Withering’s careful documentation and analysis of his many cases together with his instructions for preparation and dosage that introduced digitalis as a safe drug for a specific purpose. The book was written not only as a directive but as warning against the over-use of the drug which, of course, remains in use today. The exquisite hand-colored illustration of the foxglove plant included in this copy is in near mint condition.

The Gravid Uterus

William Hunter (1718-1783). Anatomia uteri humani gravidi tabulis illustrate. . . the anatomy of the human gravid uterus exhibited in figures. John Baskerville, Birmingham, 1774.

William Hunter, born in Scotland, was a London physician and obstetrician whose principal interest was in anatomy. Upon becoming professor of anatomy of the Society of Navy Surgeons in 1746, Hunter initiated a series of lectures on anatomy, surgery, and obstetrics which became quite popular and well-attended. In 1768, he constructed an anatomical theater and museum on Great Windmill Street where many of the foremost surgeons and anatomists of the day, including his brother John, were trained. This stunning atlas, containing life-sized steel engravings of the gravid uterus is one of the most elegant and accurate anatomical works in existence. Hunter spent more than twenty-five years preparing the atlas, employed artists to prepare the engravings an enormous expense to himself, and entrusted the printing of the work to John Baskerville, the greatest English printer of the eighteenth century. Portions of the cadavers on which the dissection was made and upon which the engravings were based remain at the University of Glasgow Anatomy Museum where they may be viewed by the public. This important work may be viewed by visiting the John Martin Rare Book Room. In addition to the images displayed here, high resolution scans of all of the plates from this work can be found by consulting Historical Anatomies on the Web, from the History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine.

[Above summary adopted from Heirs of Hippocrates]

For more information about the John Martin Rare Book Room please visit the Web site at http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/hardin/rbr/ or contact Ed Holtum, Assistant Director for Administrative Services and Special Collections, at 319/335-9154 or edwin-holtum@uiowa.edu.

Changing Medicine in a Heartbeat

Réné Laënnec (1781-1826). Traité de l’Auscultation Médiate , Paris, 1819.

The stethoscope is so familiar an object, it is somewhat surprising that it did not arrive on the scene until 1816. In fact, if it had not been for a fear of breaching 19th century etiquette, we might have had to wait even longer for its appearance. While the noises of the chest had long been linked to certain conditions, it was not until Réné Laënnec, a Paris physician, was confronted with a patient who, “…owing to her stoutness little information could be gathered by application of the hand and percussion. The patient’s age and sex did not permit me to resort to the kind of examination I have just described (i.e., direct application of the ear to the chest.)”. Recollecting that children often listen to noises through hollow logs, Leannec rolled up several sheets of paper to form a tube and found to his delight that he could hear better with his new invention than he could with the ear alone. After a good deal of experimenting, Leannec produced a wooden instrument with which he learned to discern the significance of the various sounds which he described in great detail. His descriptions were so keen that they retain their accuracy and authority to the present day. Laënnec published his findings in Traité de l’Auscultation Médiate in 1819 in two volumes. The copy in the John Martin Rare Book room is particularly well preserved and includes the many folding plates illustrating Laennec’s invention that quickly became the fundamental diagnostic tool we recognize today.

Click here to view larger images of Traité de l’Auscultation Médiate.