LEWES, George Henry.
The physiology of common life. New York, Appleton, 1860.
2 vols, 8vo, pp. viii, 368, [6, advertisements]; 410, [10, advertisements]; wood-engraved diagrams to text; some light foxing to titles, else a very good copy in original contrasting purple and blue pebbled cloth, rather faded and rubbed; binding of first vol. split but holding firm; yellow endpapers; traces of small stamp removed from front pastedowns; contemporary ownership inscription in pencil.
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The physiology of common life.
First American edition, scarce in commerce, first published 1859. A serious work of physiological biology by the self-taught scientist, known for his supposedly humane experiments (using ether and chloroform) on the nervous systems of frogs, which he describes here. Darwin is not mentioned, but Lewes’s sensitivity to the very newest scientific ideas are in evidence here, as he points out structures which are common to all organisms in the same year in which The origin of the species first appeared; an advertisement for the book can be found at the end of the second volume, with a predictably sensational review.