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.-
COSTANZO, Gaetano.
Qualche considerazione sui mezzi curativi adoperati nel ripartimento delle donne al manicomio di Palermo …
Palermo, Giovanni Lorsnaider, 1876.
Very rare first and only edition of this fascinating treatise on the care of women at the asylum for the insane in Palermo, by its chief medical officer Dr Gaetano Costanzo.
£350
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COX, John Roalfe.
Horses in Accident and Disease: Notes and Sketches.
Edinburgh, George Waterston & Sons for David Douglas, 1892.
First edition of an elegantly illustrated veterinary work. An early advocate of the use of chloroform anaesthetic when operating on horses, J. Roalfe Cox here offers tender line drawings and brief descriptions of twenty-eight equine ailments.
£70
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CREVE, Carl Caspar.
Vom Metallreize, einem neuentdeckten untrüglichen Prüfungsmittel des wahren Todes. Mit einer Kupfertafel.
Leipzig and Gera, Wilhelm Heinsius, 1796.
First edition of this uncommon contribution to the medical literature in which Creve proposes a new method of ascertaining death using a metal conductor attached to muscle tissue, part of the body of research that inspired Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
£550
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CUVIER, Georges, and Edward BLYTH (editor).
The animal Kingdom, arranged after its Organization, forming a natural...
London, William S. Orr & Co., 1851.
Third Blyth edition of Cuvier’s Règne animal. A seminal work of natural history and comparative anatomy, the Règne animal was first published in December 1816 and translated into English in parts issued from 1824 to 1835. The work was edited and enlarged in 1840 by the zoologist...
£175
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[DE LA GUTHÈRE.]
Du bon usage des eaux de Baignieres.
Agen, Antoine Bru … 1680.
Second edition, revised, a guide to the waters at Bagnères-de-Bigorre in South-West France by a local physician, dedicated to the young Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, duc de Maine (1670–1736), son of Louis XIV and his mistress Madame de Montespan.
£600
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DE NASCA, Giuseppe.
Intorno all’uso del laudano concentrato del cav. Quadri per curare parecchie malattie degli occhi. Memoria...
Naples, Giovanni Battista Seguim, 1828.
Very rare tract on the use of concentrated laudanum in the treatment of various eye complaints by the Sicilian physician Giuseppe de Nasca (1803–1893).
£550
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DEPARCIEUX, Antoine.
Essai sur les probabilités de la durée de la vie humaine; d’où l’on déduit la manière de déterminer...
Paris, chez les frères Guerin, 1746.
A large, crisp and illustrious copy of the first edition of a classic of statistical science: it is the first to define expectation of life – which Deparcieux calls ‘la vie moyenne’ – and the first to contain life tables for men and women.
£3000
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DIKREITER, Otto, and Renée SINTENIS (illustrator).
Du und Dein Pferd: Ein anmutiges, belehrendes, und ergötzliches...
Berlin, Königsberg, & Leipzig, Kanter Verlag, [c. 1938].
First edition (seventh to tenth thousand) of a charmingly illustrated work. The collection of short pieces of poetry and prose relating to horses, gathered from sources ranging from Shakespeare and Goethe to Xenophon and the Koran, is illustrated by the German artist Renée Sintenis (1888–1965),...
£80
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DUTROCHET, Henri.
Recherches sur l’endosmose et sur la cause physique de ce phénomène (Extrait des Annales de Chimie et de...
[Paris, imprimerie de Veuve Thuau, 1832.]
An interesting article on endosmosis by the important French physiologist Henri Dutrochet (1776–1847), renowned for his work on osmosis and cell theory. ‘Although the conditions of Dutrochet’s experiments were rather simple and did not allow of great accuracy, he made the first important...
£175
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ÉCOLE DE MEDECINE DE MONTPELLIER.
A collection of eighty-seven doctoral dissertations presented to and defended at the Medical...
Montpellier, various publishers, 1800–1810.
An extraordinary collection, bound up very soon after the last was published, of eighty-seven doctoral dissertations presented to the ancient medical school at Montpellier in the first decade of the nineteenth century.
£1750
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EHRLICH, Paul.
Autograph letter, signed, addressed to ‘herr hospitalmeister’.
[Frankfurt,] ‘Westendstrasse 62’, [no date].
A brief note by the bacteriologist Paul Ehrlich (1854–1915), pioneer of haematology and discoverer of salvarsan, to a local hospital director, regarding notes on the bulletin board.
£750
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EMSWORTH, D.
Le cheval & le chien.
Brussels, widow Parent & Son, and Paris, Charles Tanera, 1865.
Very rare French treatise on horses and dogs. The majority of the work is devoted to horses, discussing their breeds, diseases, training, and racing, with a chapter on the Rarey method.
£375
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FALCONER, William.
Remarks on the Influence of Climate, Situation, Nature of Country, Population, Nature of Food, and Way of Life,...
London, C. Dilly, 1781.
First edition of Falconer’s pioneering contribution to the late Enlightenment’s study of environmental forces on society.
£1750
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[FIRST AID – RAILWAYS.]
Ministère des chemins de fer, postes et télégraphes. Administration des chemins de fer de l’état. Manuel...
Gand, F.& R. Buyck Frères, 1912.
First separate edition, as far as we are aware with no institutional holdings, of this guide to first aid in a railway context, published by the state railway administration of Belgium.
£195
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FLEMING, Alexander, Sir.
On the antibacterial Action of Cultures of a Penicillium, with special Reference to their Use in...
[London, H.K. Lewis & Co., 1944.]
Second edition of Fleming’s study announcing the discovery of penicillin, one of 250 copies which Fleming commissioned to be printed in 1944. The original offprint, issued in 1929 in 150 copies and liberally distributed by Fleming to the scientific community at large for the prompt furthering...
£4000
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FRAISSINES, Doctor.
Thèse de chirurgie, sur l’opération de l’empyeme, dédiée à messieurs les capitouls. Soutenue sous...
Toulouse, de l’imprimerie de la veuve de J.F. Desclassan, [1780].
Very rare thesis on empyema thoracis (infection of the pleural cavity) by Dr Fraissines, first surgeon at Saint-Eloi hospital in Montpellier and a member of the city’s Société Royale des Sciences, printed by Bertrande Desclassan.
£575
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FREUD, Sigmund.
Die Zukunft einer Illusion.
Leipzig/Vienna/Zürich, Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, 1927.
First edition, in the first issue of 5000 copies, of Freud’s work on the origins and future development of religion (the ‘illusion’ of the title), centred on the notion of religion as, in one form or another, wish-fulfilment and the longing for a paternal figure as a response to a realisation...
£85
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FREUD, Sigmund.
Moses and monotheism [translated from the German by Katherine Jones].
New York, Alfred A, Knopf, 1939.
First American edition of the last lifetime publication of Freud, a study of the origins of monotheism in Judaism and Christiantity, where Freud took as his point of departure the theory that Moses was not an Israelite but an Egyptian, who imported the seeds of Judaism into Israel from Egypt. The book...
£80
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GABARO, Antonio.
Alla pregiatissima Signora Domenica Schiavon Menato nella fausta occasione del suo primo parto, in argomento...
Padua, ‘Nella Tipografia del Seminario’, 1820.
First and only edition, very rare, of a scathing and sexist condemnation of ‘inhuman’ women who do not breastfeed their own children, dedicated to Domenica Schiavon Menato, ‘an example to all women’, on the occasion of the birth of her first child.
£380
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[GALEN.] STEPHANUS.
Stephani Atheniensis philosophi explanationes in Galeni priorem librum therapeuticum ad Glauconem, Augustino...
Venice, Giunta, November 1554.
First edition of Agostino Gadaldini’s Latin translation of Galen’s medical treatise Ad Glauconem and of Stephanus’ commentary upon it, enhanced with his own scholia.
£950