Anatomical Exercitations, Concerning the Generation of Living Creatures: To which are added Particular Discourses, of Births, and of Conceptions, &c.

Harvey, William

Publication Date: 1653

About this Item

London, Printed by James Young, for Octavian Pulleyn, and are to be fold at his Shop at the Sign pf the Rose in sT. Pauls Church-yard, 1653, kl.-8°, (46), 566 pp. (i.e.556 pp.), + Errata leaf, old full leather binding; fine copy. First English Translation! "This original English translation has never been reprinted, except for the last three chapters which were printed in Manchester in 1849". "Pages 121, 138, 529, 552, 553, 556 mispaginated 101, 108, 429, 562, 663, 566". Harvey portrait is absent as recognised in at least half of the copies known - "Many copies of the book lack the engraving and may never have contained it." Geoffrey Keynes Portion torn away from head of A3 (dedication) with loss to head-line & first line of text and old ink signature (repaired and missing text supplied in manuscript), one or two spots, cropped shaving fore-edge of title and a few head-lines, a crisp clean copy in early nineteenth century tree calf, gilt. William Harvey (1578-1657) "was among the first to disbelieve the erroneous doctrine of the "preformation" of the fetus; he maintained that the organism derives from the ovum by the gradual building up and aggregation of its parts. The chapter on on labor ("De partu") in this book is the first work on that subject to be written by an Englishman, and the first original work on obstetrics by an English author. This book also demonstrates Harvey's intimate knowledge of the existing literature on the embryology. He corrected many of the errors of Fabricius. Harvey considered this to be the culminating work of his life, and more significant than De motu cordis. " Garrison & Morton See - The analysis of the Degeneratione animalium of William Harvey by A. W. Meyer, Stanford Univ. Press, 1936. Heirs of Hippocrates, 389; Cushing H140; Keynes 43; Osler 714; Russell 384; Waller 4126; Wellcome III, p.220. Seller Inventory # 64737

Bibliographic Details

Title: Anatomical Exercitations, Concerning the ...

Publication Date: 1653

Binding: Hardcover