Science
Contact Andrea Mazzocchi
Science at Quaritch is broadly defined, ranging from medicine, anatomy, pharmacology (including herbals) and natural history to astronomy, physics, chemistry and mathematics.
An interest in the origins of modern chemistry has led to a specialisation in works on alchemy and distillation, and from there we have also branched out into occultism and hermeticism. We have developed an interest in gastronomy and books on nutrition and wine, an area which over the years has become one of our specialities.-
REID, Thomas.
Essays on the powers of the human mind; to which are prefixed, an Essay on quantity, and an Analysis of Aristotle’s...
[Edinburgh, W. Aitchison for] London, Ogle, Duncan & Co., and Edinburgh, J. Dick & Co. and W. Hunter, and Glasgow, M. Ogle, 1822.
A beautiful set of this small format edition of the principal philosophical works of the Scottish enlightenment philosopher Thomas Reid (1710–1796).
£750
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[RICCI, Pellegrino].
Dissertazione sul costume di suonar le campane in occasione di temporali …
Faenza, Lodovico Genestri, 1787.
An attractive copy of this rare dissertation in which the author, a Minorite friar, attempts to demonstrate scientifically that the popular practice of ringing church bells during storms in the attempt to dissipate storm clouds and minimise the danger from lightning in fact had no effect. Ricci explains...
£475
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RIEMANN, Georg Friedrich Bernhard.
Ein Beitrag zu den Untersuchungen über die Bewegung eines flüssigen gleichartigen Ellipsoids.
Göttingen, Dieterichsche Buchhandlung, 1861.
the very rare offprint issue from the abhandlungen der königlichen gesellschaft der wissenschaften zu göttigen of riemann’s classic paper on rotating liquid ellipsoids, containing solutions of the equations of fluid dynamics that were later applied to the physics of rotating stars by chandrasekhar...
£750
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ROBINSON, Alan James (artist), and Laurie BLOCK.
An Odd Bestiary, or, a Compendium of instructive and entertaining Descriptions...
[Easthampton (MA),] Cheloniidae Press, 1982.
First edition, numbered 69 of 200 copies from a limited edition of 300 and signed by the artist.
£500
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RONDINELLI, Francesco.
Relazione del contagio stato in Firenze l’anno 1630 e 1633 con un breve ragguaglio della miracolosa immagine...
Florence, Gio. Batista Landini, 1634.
First edition of this official account of the Florentine plague of 1630 and 1633, commissioned by Ferdinando II de’ Medici, grand duke of Tuscany, and composed by his librarian Rondinelli from official records and interviews with survivors. Plague had been brought to Italy in 1629 by troops fighting...
£950
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[ROYAL PRUSSIAN SOCIETY OF SCIENCES.]
Miscellanea berolinensia ad incrementum scientiarum, ex scriptis societati regiae scientiarum...
Berlin, Johann Christoph Papen, 1723.
First continuation of Leibniz’s Miscellanea berolinensia. First appearing in 1710, the publication of the Miscellanea was revived in 1723 as the official journal of the Royal Prussian Society of Sciences after the death of Leibniz, its founding President. The Continuatio comprises...
£575
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RUSH, John; Jacob F. SHEEK, editor.
The Hand-Book to veterinary Homoeopathy, or the homoeopathic Treatment of the Horse,...
New York & San Francisco, Boericke & Tafel, 1876.
Later American edition of a rare hand-book to veterinary homoeopathy. The text, first published in 1853, offers homoeopathic remedies for a variety of ailments, prefaced by a defence of the principles of the practice.
£275
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SABATIER, Raphaël Bienvenu.
Traité complet d’anatomie, ou description de toutes les parties du corps humain ... Troisième...
Paris, Théophile Barrois, 1791.
Third edition (first 1775) of this popular treatise on anatomy by Raphaël Bienvenu Sabatier (1732–1811).
£200
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SACCHI, Giovenale.
Del numero e delle misure delle corde musiche e loro corrispondenze. Dissertazione del P. D. Giovenale...
Milan, [Giuseppe Mazzucchelli (colophon),] 1761.
First edition of Sacchi’s first work: a theoretical study of music and acoustic from a mathematical and physical perspective built upon the most innovative eighteenth-century physics.
£850
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[SACROBOSCO, Johannes de.]
CLAVIUS, Christophorus. In sphaeram Ioannis de Sacro Bosco commentarius, nunc iterum ab ipso Auctore...
Rome, Francesco Zanetti for Domenico Basa, 1581.
Third edition, the first to contain Clavius’s condemnation of Copernicus, with ten highly detailed woodcut diagrams of solar and lunar eclipses not included in the first edition.
£2500
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SALADO GARCES Y RIBERA, Francisco.
Varias materias de diversas facultades, y sciencias politica contra peste, govierno en lo espiritual,...
Utrera, Juan Malpartida, 1655.
Very rare first edition of this highly interesting work on plague, viewed from medical, religious, and political standpoints, by a lawyer from Utrera in southern Spain, written in the wake of the devastating epidemic that struck the city and province of Seville in 1649 as part of the Great Plague...
£2500
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SAUNIER, Jean de, and Gaspard de SAUNIER.
La parfaite connoissance des chevaux, leur anatomie, leurs bonnes & mauvaises...
The Hague, for the Author and sold by Adrien Moetjens, 1734.
First edition of Gaspard de Saunier’s most important work, the only one published during his lifetime. Gaspard de Saunier (1663 - 1748) established his reputation with the foundation of his equestrian academy at Leiden in 1707 and as riding master to the university there, having previously served...
£1950
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[SCHLOSSER, Johann Albert]. BODDAERT, Pieter.
Epistola ad … Hier. Dav. Gaubium … De chaetodonte diacantho, descripto atque...
Amsterdam, apud M. Magerum, 1772.
First and only edition of Boddaert’s description of the Royal Angelfish found in the Schlosser natural history cabinet. This is the first monograph on the Royal Angelfish (and its first illustration), a now common species of coral fish in the Pacific and Indian Ocean.
£500
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[SCHLOSSER, Johann Albert.] BODDAERT, Pieter.
Epistola ad virum celeberrimum Johannem Burmannum … De Chaetodonte Argo descripto...
Amsterdam, apud Cornelium van Tongerlo, 1770.
First and only edition of Boddaert’s description of this Indo-West Pacific fish species found in the Schlosser natural history cabinet.
£500
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SCHÖFFLER, Benedict.
Die Phototelegraphie und das Elektrische Fernsehen.
Wien und Leipzig, Wilhelm Braumüller, 1898.
A treatise by a German artillery officer on the electrical transmission of images, occasioned by newspaper reports of Jan Szczepanik’s invention. ‘On February 24, 1897, Jan Szczepanik and Ludwig Kleinberg of Austria applied for a patent for a method and apparatus for reproducing pictures and the...
£750
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SECHENOV, Ivan Mikhaylovich.
Fisiologia nervnoy sistemy [in Cyrillic].
St. Petersburg, 1866.
first edition, rare, of Sechenov’s influential lectures at the St. Petersburg Medico-Surgical Academy. Sechenov states in his preface that as soon as he began to lecture (St. Petersburg in 1860 was his first professorship) he discovered the deficiencies of the existing textbooks, which tended to be...
£2750
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SIMON, John, Sir.
A volume of autograph letters received by Sir John Simon from medical friends and acquaintances.
Circa 1848-1887.
An interesting collection of letters to Sir John Simon and Lady Simon, from many of the leading physicians and surgeons of the Victorian era. Sir John Simon (1816–1904) was a renowned surgeon, President of the Royal College of Surgeons, and an efficient and dynamic reformer of public health...
£1250
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SMITH, Robert.
The Universal Directory for taking alive and destroying Rats, and all other Kinds of four-footed and winged Vermin,...
London, printed for the author, 1768.
First edition of a guide to catching and killing all manner of crawling and flying vermin, illustrated with plates, by the professional exterminator and rat-catcher Robert Smith.
£500
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SQUIRES, Richard F.
Typescript letter to John Derek Smith, signed Rick,
dated Gladsaxe [Denmark], December 7, 1965.
Squires’ main research was into multiple forms of monoamine oxidases, and their inhibitors, which are nowadays used as antidepressants. Squires reports of problems not entirely unrelated with psycho-active substances:
£180
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STABLES, Gordon.
Hints about home and farm favourites for pleasure, prizes, and profit.
London and New York, Frederick Warne, 1889.
First edition of this charming work on the care of pets, with chapters on dogs, cats, poultry, rabbits, goats, ferrets, monkeys, guinea-pigs, ‘fancy rats’, and tortoises, as well as on ‘monkeys as pets’. The book is dedicated to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
£250