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L'Inoculation Justifiee, ou Dissertation Pratique et Apologetique sur cette Methode; avec un Essai sur la Mue de la Voix. Lausanne: chez Marc-Michel Bousquet & Compagnie, 1754. xviii, 179 [1] pp. Title with woodcut vignette, woodcut head- and tailpieces. [Bound with:] TISSOT, Samuel Auguste André David. Lettre a monsieur De Haen, conseiller aulique de L.M. Imp. premier professeur en medecine-pratique a Vienne, &c &c. Lausanne: Francois Grasset, 1759. [2], 142 pp. Title with woodcut vignette, woodcut head- and tailpieces. Without the half-title sometimes found in later issues. Two works in one volume. 12mo (153 x 97 mm). Contemporary sprinkled papercard boards, spine with gilt-lettered paper label, red-dyed edges (minor rubbing, paper over joints split, spine ends and corners worn, corners bumped). Text with little even browning, very minor occasional spotting. Provenance: Bonifacius Brix of Wahlberg (inscribed at head of first title "Ex bibliotheca D. Brix de Wahlberg Archiatr[icis] Fürstenberg[ensis]"). ---- I. Blake/NLM, p. 453. VERY RARE FIRST EDITION of Tissot's manual giving instructions on how to carry out inoculation and citing arguments in defence of the new technology. Inoculation was introduced into Europe from the Middle East in 1718 and two physicians, E. Timoni and G. Pilarini, made the technology known with their publication in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Spciety London in 1714. In 1722 inoculation was heavily condemned for religious reasons by the Rev. Edmund Massey which was also the starting point for a persistant ethical debate. "The longevity of the debate and the numerous arguments indicate the significance of the religious and ethical challenge posed by inoculation. Even if some Enlightenment radicals would ridicule biblical arguments of the kind presented by Massey, religious and ethical considerations obviously remained an issue that was not to be treated lightly. Among the twelve objections against inoculation discussed by the Swiss physician S.A.D. Tissot in his L?inoculation justifiée from 1754, the first six concern ethical and religious arguments . Tissot's main argument in favour of inoculation was the possibility it gave of controlling the course of the disease. Smallpox in itself was a mild and not very dangerous kind of disease, he contended. What made it lethal were the circumstances. The age of the patient and his or her constitution, as well as the time of year and the weather conditions, not least the air, all contributed to risk, uncertainty and malignant cases. Inoculation solved these problems, as it made it possible to choose the most suitable age and season and to prepare the patients for it in the ways their individual constitutions demanded. Nonetheless, Tissot also warned against measures that might make the illness too light - in such cases inoculation will not protect against further attacks of the disease, he maintained." (A. Eriksen, Cure or Protection? The meaning of smallpox inoculation, ca 1750?1775. In: Med Hist. 2013, 57(4), p. 516-19). II. Wellcome V, p.277. FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, without the half title printed on different paper which was evidently added to later issues (i.e., 1765), see Wellcome V, p.277. "Tissot, a Swiss physician, studied medicine in Geneva and Montpellier and settled in Lausanne, where his time was divided among practice, writing, and teaching. His medical works were numerous and include treatises on smallpox and inoculation, epilepsy, nervous diseases, migraine, popular medicine, onanism, and . . . bilious fevers. Many of his works became very popular, were translated into English and the major European languages, and went through many editions." (Heirs of Hippocrates 978). - Visit our website to see more images! Seller Inventory # 003587
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