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Large 4to, pp. 377; with at least 52 text illustrations, mostly full-page photographic reproductions of portraits, title-pages and book illustrations, of which three folding, and including a number of smaller reproductions of engraved figures; errata leaf detached; paper a little browned throughout due to quality, with some minor marginal dust-soiling, though generally clean and bright, gutters exposed in a few places, most noticeably at p. 199 and 267; uncut, and largely unopened in the original printed card wrappers, upper cover and spine lettered in black with red vignette on upper cover, spine a little creased with red ink stain affecting upper joint, head and tail of spine, joints and extremities all a little rubbed and bumped, but otherwise a good copy; with a presentation inscription on the the half-title signed by both authors and given to 'M. Henry Vines'. First edition, and a presentation copy signed by both authors in the original binding, of this detailed and noted history of psychiatry, tracing the developments in the understanding of psychiatric disorders, as well as the methods of treatment employed both pharmacologically and therapeutically, from the Renaissance through to the end of the 19th century. The work beings with a chapter on three noted French historians of psychiatry, Louis Calmeil (1798-1895), Benedict Morel (1809-1873) and Ulysses Trelat (1828-1890), before discussing the neuro-psychiatric knowledge of the 16th century practitioner Jean Schenck (1530-1598). The work then moves on to discuss luminaries such Ambroise Paré (1510-1590), Thomas Willis (1621-1675), Diemerbroeck (1609-1674), Philippe Pinel (1745-1826), and Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). Chapters also deal with ideas on demonism, animal magnetism, the symbolic representations of the various forms of madness, and researches on the moral treatment of insanity. The work is copiously illustrated throughout, both with full-page plates and smaller text illustrations, reproducing the portraits, title-pages and illustrations, from many of the foremost works on psychiatry. The work was favourably reviewed. 'Here is a very well presented book, superbly illustrated, and which I recommend to bibliophiles; and as for the content, which is of particular interest to neurologists and psychiatrists, it cannot leave historians of therapeutics and, therefore, of pharmacology indifferent either. It would still be restricting and lowering the question to reduce it to this single point of view, and the merit of the authors is precisely to have broadened and elevated the debate by constantly showing us the repercussions of successive pathogenic theories on the doctor's prescriptions' (translation of Paul Delaunay, in Revue d'histoire de la pharmacie, 1931, 73, pp. 70-72). Laignel-Lavastine (1875-1953) was himself a prominent professor of both psychiatry and the history of medicine, and taught at the Institute of Criminology and Penal Law in Paris. He is also remembered for the influential three volume history of medicine, Histoire générale de la médecine, de la pharmacie, de l'art dentaire et de l'art vétérinaire, which he edited in 1936. Jean Vinchon (1884-?) trained in Paris and was successively the medical director of the Neuro-psychiatric Centre of the French Army of the East during the First World War, director of the clinic of the Paris Medical School between the wars, and director of Army Neuropsychiatric Center, in the Paris Region as World War II began (1939-40). He published a number of works on parapsychology. Garrison-Morton 5010; Postel and Quetel, Nouvelle histoire de la psychiatrie, p. 551Waller, 13970.
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