Science

Contact Andrea Mazzocchi

Science at Quaritch is broadly defined, ranging from medicine, anatomy, pharmacology (including herbals) and natural history to astronomy, physics, chemistry and mathematics.

An interest in the origins of modern chemistry has led to a specialisation in works on alchemy and distillation, and from there we have also branched out into occultism and hermeticism. We have developed an interest in gastronomy and books on nutrition and wine, an area which over the years has become one of our specialities.
  1. SABATIER, Raphaël Bienvenu.

    Traité complet d’anatomie, ou description de toutes les parties du corps humain ... Troisième...

    Paris, Théophile Barrois, 1791.

    Third edition (first 1775) of this popular treatise on anatomy by Raphaël Bienvenu Sabatier (1732–1811).

    £200

  2. SACCHI, Giovenale. 

    Del numero e delle misure delle corde musiche e loro corrispondenze.  Dissertazione del P. D. Giovenale...

    Milan, [Giuseppe Mazzucchelli (colophon),] 1761. 

    First edition of Sacchi’s first work: a theoretical study of music and acoustic from a mathematical and physical perspective built upon the most innovative eighteenth-century physics. 

    £850

  3. [SACROBOSCO, Johannes de.] 

    CLAVIUS, Christophorus.  In sphaeram Ioannis de Sacro Bosco commentarius, nunc iterum ab ipso Auctore...

    Rome, Francesco Zanetti for Domenico Basa, 1581. 

    Third edition, the first to contain Clavius’s condemnation of Copernicus, with ten highly detailed woodcut diagrams of solar and lunar eclipses not included in the first edition. 

    £2500

  4. SALADO GARCES Y RIBERA, Francisco.

    Varias materias de diversas facultades, y sciencias politica contra peste, govierno en lo espiritual,...

    Utrera, Juan Malpartida, 1655.

    Very rare first edition of this highly interesting work on plague, viewed from medical, religious, and political standpoints, by a lawyer from Utrera in southern Spain, written in the wake of the devastating epidemic that struck the city and province of Seville in 1649 as part of the Great Plague...

    £2500

  5. SAUNIER, Jean de, and Gaspard de SAUNIER.

    La parfaite connoissance des chevaux, leur anatomie, leurs bonnes & mauvaises...

    The Hague, for the Author and sold by Adrien Moetjens, 1734.

    First edition of Gaspard de Saunier’s most important work, the only one published during his lifetime. Gaspard de Saunier (1663 - 1748) established his reputation with the foundation of his equestrian academy at Leiden in 1707 and as riding master to the university there, having previously served...

    £1950

  6. [SCHLOSSER, Johann Albert].  BODDAERT, Pieter.

    Epistola ad … Hier. Dav. Gaubium … De chaetodonte diacantho, descripto atque...

    Amsterdam, apud M. Magerum, 1772.

    First and only edition of Boddaert’s description of the Royal Angelfish found in the Schlosser natural history cabinet.  This is the first monograph on the Royal Angelfish (and its first illustration), a now common species of coral fish in the Pacific and Indian Ocean. 

    £500

  7. [SCHLOSSER, Johann Albert.] BODDAERT, Pieter. 

    Epistola ad virum celeberrimum Johannem Burmannum … De Chaetodonte Argo descripto...

    Amsterdam, apud Cornelium van Tongerlo, 1770.

    First and only edition of Boddaert’s description of this Indo-West Pacific fish species found in the Schlosser natural history cabinet. 

    £500

  8. SCHÖFFLER, Benedict.

    Die Phototelegraphie und das Elektrische Fernsehen.

    Wien und Leipzig, Wilhelm Braumüller, 1898.

    A treatise by a German artillery officer on the electrical transmission of images, occasioned by newspaper reports of Jan Szczepanik’s invention. ‘On February 24, 1897, Jan Szczepanik and Ludwig Kleinberg of Austria applied for a patent for a method and apparatus for reproducing pictures and the...

    £750

  9. SECHENOV, Ivan Mikhaylovich.

    Fisiologia nervnoy sistemy [in Cyrillic].

    St. Petersburg, 1866.

    first edition, rare, of Sechenov’s influential lectures at the St. Petersburg Medico-Surgical Academy. Sechenov states in his preface that as soon as he began to lecture (St. Petersburg in 1860 was his first professorship) he discovered the deficiencies of the existing textbooks, which tended to be...

    £2750

  10. SHELDRAKE, Timothy.

    The Causes of Heat and Cold in the several Climates and Situations of this Globe, so far as they depend upon...

    London, printed for and sold by the author … and by M. Cooper, 1756.

    First edition, rare on the market, of this work on climate by the botanist Timothy Sheldrake (c. 1691–c. 1759) evidencing his interest in tropical plants.

    £1275

  11. SIMON, John, Sir.

    A volume of autograph letters received by Sir John Simon from medical friends and acquaintances.

    Circa 1848-1887.

    An interesting collection of letters to Sir John Simon and Lady Simon, from many of the leading physicians and surgeons of the Victorian era. Sir John Simon (1816–1904) was a renowned surgeon, President of the Royal College of Surgeons, and an efficient and dynamic reformer of public health...

    £1250

  12. SMITH, Robert. 

    The Universal Directory for taking alive and destroying Rats, and all other Kinds of four-footed and winged Vermin,...

    London, printed for the author, 1768. 

    First edition of a guide to catching and killing all manner of crawling and flying vermin, illustrated with plates, by the professional exterminator and rat-catcher Robert Smith. 

    £500

  13. SQUIRES, Richard F.

    Typescript letter to John Derek Smith, signed Rick,

    dated Gladsaxe [Denmark], December 7, 1965.

    Squires’ main research was into multiple forms of monoamine oxidases, and their inhibitors, which are nowadays used as antidepressants. Squires reports of problems not entirely unrelated with psycho-active substances:

    £180

  14. STABLES, Gordon.

    Hints about home and farm favourites for pleasure, prizes, and profit.

    London and New York, Frederick Warne, 1889.

    First edition of this charming work on the care of pets, with chapters on dogs, cats, poultry, rabbits, goats, ferrets, monkeys, guinea-pigs, ‘fancy rats’, and tortoises, as well as on ‘monkeys as pets’. The book is dedicated to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

    £250

  15. STATUTA COLLEGII DD.

    Almae Urbis Medicorum ex antiquis Romanorum Pontificum bullis congesta, & hactenùs per Sedem Apostolicam...

    Rome, Printer of the Apostolic Chamber, 1676 [– c.1745].

    The very rare enlarged and updated issue of the statutes of the medical faculty of Rome, a very rare and interesting document on its internal organization.

    £550

  16. STENUIT, Alfred and G. de VOGHEL.

    Manuel de sauvetage dans les mines. Notions théoriques sur les accidents et le sauvetage. Description...

    Tamines, Duculot-Roulin, 1909.

    Only edition of this attractively illustrated and very rare guide to life-saving in mines, by the Belgian mining engineers Stenuit and de Voghel. Divided into three parts, the book opens with explanations of the possible hazards, ranging from asphyxiation to explosions and underground fires, as well...

    £350

  17. STIRLING, A.M.W.

    Ghosts vivisected. An impartial inquiry into their manners, habits, mentality, motives and physical construction....

    London, Robert Hale, 1957.

    First edition, a very readable account of otherworldly encounters, with illustrations by the Symbolist painter Evelyn de Morgan, the author’s elder sister.

    £40

  18. STRICKLAND, Hugh Edwin, and A. 

    G. MELVILLE.  The Dodo and its Kindred; or, the History, Affinities and Osteology of the Dodo,...

    London: Reeve, Benham, and Reeve … 1848. 

    An extra-illustrated family copy of the first scientific monograph on the dodo, and a related flightless bird, the Rodrigues solitaire, with the bookplates of the author and his father.

    £7500

  19. SURTEES, Robert Smith.

    The Horseman’s Manual, being a Treatise on Soundness, the Law of Warranty, and generally on the Laws relating...

    London, M.A. Pittman for Alfred Miller, 1831.

    First edition of Surtees’s first work, the only publication to bear his name, from the family of the dedicatee. Though best known for his sporting articles and novels, Robert Smith Surtees (1805–1864) was, alongside his landed interests, a respected jurist in County Durham, serving as justice...

    £1250

  20. SWOBODA, Hermann.

    Die Perioden des menschlichen Organismus: in ihrer psychologischen und biologischen Bedeutung.

    Leipzig, Deuticke, 1904.

    First editions, all rare, the first two being foundational works in the formation of the theory of biorhythm. Swoboda’s early studies on the recurrence or periodicity in phenomena acquired a psychological character and application in his work since his encounter and brief experience of analysis with...

    £200