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Details
BELL, John (1763-1820). Engravings, Explaining the Anatomy of the Bones, Muscles, and Joints. Edinburgh: Printed by John Paterson, 1794.
One volume in 2, 4o (262 x 210 mm). Engraved title-page in plate volume, 32 plates (one folding), and two engraved vignettes in text (some spotting and soiling, folding plate chipped along bottom margin with some loss). Contemporary calf-backed marbled boards (rebacked, worn). Provenance: Dr. Edwin Page (manuscript notation on front free endpaper of each vol.); Dr. John Meachem (ownership signature, ink stamp); Ira M. Rutkow (pencil signature on rear flyleaf).
FIRST EDITION. Encouraged by an artistic mother, John Bell had received early training in drawing. He was one of the first to apply anatomical teachings to surgery. From 1786-1799 he was Scotland's premier teacher of surgical anatomy, and his anatomical writings and illustrations were geared to the needs of the operative surgeon. Bell's atlas of the bones, muscles, and joints, illustrated mostly with his own engravings and etchings after his own paintings, represented a new, more realistic and less idealized style of anatomical illustration. Bell's illustrations are some of the most striking in the entire literature, although not to everyone's taste: "Certainly they have the immediacy of drawings made in the dissecting rooms of late Georgian Edinburgh. Some are quite gruesome and even perverted ... In their context they are admirable..."(Roberts & Tomlinson, p. 491). Heirs of Hippocrates 1187; Russell, British Anatomy 60; Wellcome II,p.137.
One volume in 2, 4
FIRST EDITION. Encouraged by an artistic mother, John Bell had received early training in drawing. He was one of the first to apply anatomical teachings to surgery. From 1786-1799 he was Scotland's premier teacher of surgical anatomy, and his anatomical writings and illustrations were geared to the needs of the operative surgeon. Bell's atlas of the bones, muscles, and joints, illustrated mostly with his own engravings and etchings after his own paintings, represented a new, more realistic and less idealized style of anatomical illustration. Bell's illustrations are some of the most striking in the entire literature, although not to everyone's taste: "Certainly they have the immediacy of drawings made in the dissecting rooms of late Georgian Edinburgh. Some are quite gruesome and even perverted ... In their context they are admirable..."(Roberts & Tomlinson, p. 491). Heirs of Hippocrates 1187; Russell, British Anatomy 60; Wellcome II,p.137.