Details
VIRCHOW, Rudolf (1821-1902). Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur wissenschaftlichen Medicin. Frankfurt: Meidinger Sohn, 1856.
8o (227 x 152 mm). 44 wood engravings in text, 3 fold-out plates, of which one hand-colored engraving after Virchow and Dr. Khler, one uncolored engraving after Schmerbach, and one chromolithograph after Khler. (Scattered mostly light foxing, trace of yellow paper adhered to gutter of title-page, minor dampstaining in gutters of first few leaves.) Contemporary half black morocco, marbled edges (rebacked, preserving original backstrip, slight wear to corners.) Provenance: SIR WILLIAM OSLER (1849-1919), physician, medical writer, bibliographer and collector (autograph signed gift inscription to the Medical Faculty Library at McGill College [now McGill University], dated 12 September 1887); McGill University, Library of the Faculty of Medicine (inkstamps on title, bookplate with withdrawal stamp); "A.v.G." [possibly Albrecht von Graefe (1828-1870)] (initials tooled at foot of spine).
A collection of papers published between 1846 and 1853, including several unpublished articles and lectures, by the "most prominent German physician of the nineteenth century" (DSB) and the founder of modern pathology. Besides his famous discoveries in the field of cellular pathology, Virchow's most important contribution to medicine lay in his vigorous advocacy of the scientific method. Both through his exhortations and his example his work contributed to the general abandonment of the speculative and humoral approach to medicine still dominant in Germany (heavily influenced by Schelling's Naturphilosophie), in favor of a scientific methodology based on observation and experimentation: "Virchow envisaged medical progress from three main sources: clinical observations, including the examination of the patient with the aid of physiochemical methods; animal experimentation to test specific etiologies and study certain drug effects; and pathological anatomy, especially at the microscopic level. Life, he insisted, was merely the sum of physical and chemical actions and essentially the expression of cell activity" (DSB). The papers in this collection, covering a wide range of fields in clinical pathology, exemplify Virchow's approach. They include "the first clear description of thrombosis and embolism" (Garrison-Morton), important articles on white cells and leukemia (in which Virchow gave the disease its present name), and discussions of developmental pathology, gynaecological subjects and diseases of newborns.
IMPORTANT ASSOCIATION COPY. William Osler began his career as a pathologist. He greatly admired Virchow, whose lectures he attended as a young man during a year of study abroad, and whose work was a crucial influence on his own development as a pathologist and lecturer (cf. Cushing, Life of Sir William Osler, 1925, I:110, 148, 148, etc.). In a long note to the entry for this edition in his library catalogue Osler relates the circumstances of its purchase in 1878 (apparently describing a different copy). Garrison-Morton 3006 and 3064; Heirs of Hippocrates 1891; Osler 1629; Waller 10005; Norman 2155.
8o (227 x 152 mm). 44 wood engravings in text, 3 fold-out plates, of which one hand-colored engraving after Virchow and Dr. Khler, one uncolored engraving after Schmerbach, and one chromolithograph after Khler. (Scattered mostly light foxing, trace of yellow paper adhered to gutter of title-page, minor dampstaining in gutters of first few leaves.) Contemporary half black morocco, marbled edges (rebacked, preserving original backstrip, slight wear to corners.) Provenance: SIR WILLIAM OSLER (1849-1919), physician, medical writer, bibliographer and collector (autograph signed gift inscription to the Medical Faculty Library at McGill College [now McGill University], dated 12 September 1887); McGill University, Library of the Faculty of Medicine (inkstamps on title, bookplate with withdrawal stamp); "A.v.G." [possibly Albrecht von Graefe (1828-1870)] (initials tooled at foot of spine).
A collection of papers published between 1846 and 1853, including several unpublished articles and lectures, by the "most prominent German physician of the nineteenth century" (DSB) and the founder of modern pathology. Besides his famous discoveries in the field of cellular pathology, Virchow's most important contribution to medicine lay in his vigorous advocacy of the scientific method. Both through his exhortations and his example his work contributed to the general abandonment of the speculative and humoral approach to medicine still dominant in Germany (heavily influenced by Schelling's Naturphilosophie), in favor of a scientific methodology based on observation and experimentation: "Virchow envisaged medical progress from three main sources: clinical observations, including the examination of the patient with the aid of physiochemical methods; animal experimentation to test specific etiologies and study certain drug effects; and pathological anatomy, especially at the microscopic level. Life, he insisted, was merely the sum of physical and chemical actions and essentially the expression of cell activity" (DSB). The papers in this collection, covering a wide range of fields in clinical pathology, exemplify Virchow's approach. They include "the first clear description of thrombosis and embolism" (Garrison-Morton), important articles on white cells and leukemia (in which Virchow gave the disease its present name), and discussions of developmental pathology, gynaecological subjects and diseases of newborns.
IMPORTANT ASSOCIATION COPY. William Osler began his career as a pathologist. He greatly admired Virchow, whose lectures he attended as a young man during a year of study abroad, and whose work was a crucial influence on his own development as a pathologist and lecturer (cf. Cushing, Life of Sir William Osler, 1925, I:110, 148, 148, etc.). In a long note to the entry for this edition in his library catalogue Osler relates the circumstances of its purchase in 1878 (apparently describing a different copy). Garrison-Morton 3006 and 3064; Heirs of Hippocrates 1891; Osler 1629; Waller 10005; Norman 2155.