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.-
TISSOT, Samuel August André David.
Traité de l'épilepsie ...
Paris, P.F. Didot, 1770.
The scarce first edition of Tissot’s important monograph on epilepsy, the “first book on this subject to show all the characteristics of Enlightenment in medicine. Written in the French vernacular, it is at once learned, scientific, and readable...” (Temkin, The Falling Sickness p. 229).
£800
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VILLA, Antonio, and Giovanni Battista VILLA.
Dispositio systematica conchyliarum terrestrium et fluviatilium quae adservantur...
Milan, ex typis Borroni et Scotti, 1841.
First edition of this catalogue of molluscs and shellfish in the collection of Antonio and Giovanni Battista Villa.
£275
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VISSCHER, Nicolaes [I].
Avium vivae et artificiosissimae delineationes.
Amsterdam, Nicolaus [I] Visscher, 1659.
First and only edition of this rare set of ornithological prints by the famed cartographer Nicolaes Visscher I.
£3750
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WALCOTT, John.
The Figures, Description, and History of exotic Animals, comprised under the Classes Amphibia and Pisces of Linnaeus.
London, W. Justins for the Author, and sold by White & son, Robson & Clarke, and J. Mathews, 1788.
First and only edition, very rare, published in parts. The engraved figures and their descriptions comprise a variety of turtles, snakes, frogs, and fish, including several notable species from America. Though Walcott writes in his preface of the prospect of ‘a Second Part, which will contain...
£3500
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WALLIS, William.
The Western Gentleman’s Farrier, containing Remedies for the different Diseases to which Horses are incident...
Troy (OH), John T. Tullis, 1838.
Second edition of an American work on farriery, with diseases found only in the Western States including ‘big head’ and ‘nasal polypi’. First published in 1832 on the observation that ‘most of the present works on Farriery, or more especially those adapted to our western climate, are...
£250
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[WALL, Thomas].
A Second Christian Warning-Piece; wherein is shewed the first and chief Cause of Englands present Misery … Humbly...
London, 1681-2.
First edition, very rare, of a vehement anti-Catholic tract published in the context of the Exclusion Crisis; bound with the principal astrological work of John Holwell (a slightly imperfect copy).
£1750
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WELLS, Edward.
The young Gentleman’s Astronomy, Chronology, and Dialling, containing such Elements of the said Arts or Sciences,...
London, James & John Knapton, 1725.
Third edition of Wells’s successful mathematical handbook.
£350
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WHITE, James.
A Compendium of the veterinary Art, containing an accurate Description of all the Diseases to which the Horse is...
London, J. Badcock and Longman & Co., and Canterbury, W. Bristow, [c. 1804].
Sixth edition. Evidently a successful text, further editions appeared soon after the work’s first publication and would eventually be expanded into four volumes (the present edition is often found accompanied by The materia medica and pharmacopoeia).
£225
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WHITE, James.
A Compendium of the veterinary Art, containing an accurate Description of all the Diseases to which the Horse is...
Canterbury, W. Bristow for J. Badcock, London, 1802.
First edition of one of the first works on ‘the veterinary art’. With the formalisation of the increasingly academic subject of equine medicine and the foundation of the Royal Veterinary College in the late eighteenth century, the term ‘veterinary’ soon supplanted ‘farriery’, first...
£275
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WOLFERSTAN, Stanford.
An Enquiry into the Causes of Diseases in General, and the Disturbances of the Humors in Man’s Body …...
London, Printed for Thomas Basset … 1692.
First and only edition, very rare, of a short medical work on blood, air, and poison by Stanford Wolferstan (b. 1652), youngest son of the noted book collector Frances Wolfreston (1607–1677).
£2850
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WOOD, John.
A new compendious Treatise of Farriery, wherein are set forth in a plain, familiar, and natural Manner the Disorders...
London, Hewett for the author, and sold by J. Brindley, T. Payne, and R. Withy & J. Ryall, 1757.
First edition of a treatise on farriery by John Wood, formerly groom to the King of Sardinia. The contemporary manuscript notes appear in several hands belonging to members of the Green family of Uppington in Shropshire, though the majority match inscriptions by Barnard and Jane Green. Several...
£650
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WORCESTER, Edward Somerset, Marquess of.
A Century of the Names and Scantlings of such Inventions, as at present I can call...
Reprinted, and sold by T. Payne … 1746.
Second edition of a charming catalogue of inventions claimed to have been ‘tried and perfected’ by the royalist second Marquess of Worcester (1601–1667), first published in 1663.
£750
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YARRELL, William.
A History of British Fishes … illustrated by nearly 400 Woodcuts.
London, Samuel Bentley for John van Voorst, 1836.
First collected editions, with an autograph letter on the Hebridal smelt from the species’ discoverer. Published serially from 1835 to 1836, Yarrell’s History of British Fishes was reprinted within a year, and followed soon after by Thomas Bell’s British Reptiles in 1839 and...
£750
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ZEVIANI, Giovanni Verardo.
Del flato a favore degl’ipocondriaci.
Verona, Antonio Andreoni, 1755.
Rare first edition of the first medical treatise on tympanites, a distention of the abdomen caused by the accumulation of gas in the gastro-intestinal tract, linking it with hypochondria and melancholy.
£650