Peter Bichsel   Fine Books

Dionis, (Pierre). Cours d’opération de chirurgie, démontrées au Jardin Royal. Quatrième édition, revue, augmentée de remarques importantes et enrichie de figures en tailles-douces.

With double-page engr. frontispiece (depicting the Jardin Royal), engr. portrait of the author, 12 engr. plates (1 folding), and c. 50 mostly half-page woodcuts in the text. XXXII, 923, (1) pp. Large 8vo. Contemp. full calf with gilt stamped armorial supralibros on both boards. – Paris, d’Houry, 1740.

The most popular manual of surgery in the 18th century, first published in 1707 and reissued until 1782. Copy from the estate of the Kinsky family with their armorial supralibros, later of Joachim Ramschissl with his ms. inscription „munificentia Kynskyana“ (gift by Kinsky) on flyleaf. Pierre Dionis (d. 1718) was the first to give public demonstrations in anatomy and surgery at the behest of Louis XIV. He did much to advance surgical teaching and bring the French into professional leadership. „The reasons for the success of Dionis’ ,Cours’ are that it is written in a manner truly distignuished for clarity and precision, and possesses humor and great ability at evoking the period in which Dionis lived. Nowhere can one find a better picture of the surgical conditions in Paris of the late 17th and early 18th century. It is interesting to learn that as late as 1707 Dionis speaks of the vitriol button being used to arrest hemmorhage at the Hôtel-Dieu. There are splendid chapters on lithotomy in which Dionis advises the Marian operation as the wisest, althoughh describing the great success that Bonnet had with the suprabubic technique at the Hôtel-Dieu. The work contains as well the most authoritative record of the work of that strange figure in the history of lithotomy, Frère Jacques de Baulieu. Dionis also jousts vigourously against the surgical charlatans of the period who flourished chiefly in operations on the eye and for the stone“ (Leonardo). the work contains also ections on hernia, ophthalmology, the ear, dintistry, etc. The illustrations show almost all surgical instruments. – Blake 121; Waller 2475; cf. Wellcome II, 471 (earlier and later eds.); Garrison/Morton 5575 (first ed. only); Leonardo, Lives of Master Surgeons (1948), 359 f.; Not in Osler. – A well preserved copy with only a few small tears to margins and with very light foxing. – Best.-Nr. 24509