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HIGHMORE, Nathaniel (1613-1685). Corporis humani disquisitio anatomica; in qua sanguinis circulationem in quavis corporis particula plurimis typis novis... prosequutus est. The Hague: Samuel Brown, 1651.
2o (282 x 179 mm). Additional engraved allegorical title, typographic explanation of engraved title facing engraved title, typographic title printed in red and black, 18 numbered anatomical engravings (8 full-page, engraving 12 is an inserted plate), 2 small unnumbered engravings, woodcut head-piece and initials, with final blank leaf. (Marginal worming throughout, affecting margins of additional engraved title and a few illustrations.) Contemporary calf (upper cover becoming loose). Provenance: Franz Keibel (1861-1929), important embryologist (bookplate); Harvard Medical Library, Gift of Frederic T. Lewis (bookplate).
FIRST EDITION. A reflection of the slow acceptance of revolutionary ideas, Highmore's work was the first textbook on anatomy to accept Harvey's theory of the circulation of the blood, which Harvey had first published twenty-three years earlier, in 1628. The striking engraved title of the volume incorporates the theory of the circulation into an engraved representation of the human body as a garden. The work also contains the first description of the "antrum of Highmore" (maxillary sinus) and of the corpus Highmori (mediastinal testis). Russell, British Anatomy, 415 points out that the British Library Sloan MS 546 & 547 are manuscripts for this work. Sloan MS 546, in Highmore's hand, corresponds to Book One of the printed edition, and includes two drawings, presumably by Highmore, which were reproduced in the printed edition. If so, it is possible that the author drew the remainder of the illustrations for his book. Garrison-Morton 382; Heirs of Hippocrates 499; NLM/Krivatsy 5602; Norman 1071; Russell 416; Waller 4456; Wellcome III, p. 263.
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FIRST EDITION. A reflection of the slow acceptance of revolutionary ideas, Highmore's work was the first textbook on anatomy to accept Harvey's theory of the circulation of the blood, which Harvey had first published twenty-three years earlier, in 1628. The striking engraved title of the volume incorporates the theory of the circulation into an engraved representation of the human body as a garden. The work also contains the first description of the "antrum of Highmore" (maxillary sinus) and of the corpus Highmori (mediastinal testis). Russell, British Anatomy, 415 points out that the British Library Sloan MS 546 & 547 are manuscripts for this work. Sloan MS 546, in Highmore's hand, corresponds to Book One of the printed edition, and includes two drawings, presumably by Highmore, which were reproduced in the printed edition. If so, it is possible that the author drew the remainder of the illustrations for his book. Garrison-Morton 382; Heirs of Hippocrates 499; NLM/Krivatsy 5602; Norman 1071; Russell 416; Waller 4456; Wellcome III, p. 263.