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.-
NISSEN, Peter.
‘Carl Hagenbeck’s Zoologischer Circus’
c. 1891.
A rare portfolio of live animal scenes from Carl Hagenbeck’s famous ‘zoological circus’; a wonderful hybrid of the real and the surreal in zoological and photographic history.
£12000
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[NOVARA.]
[Incipit:] Il vescovo di Novara ai signori parrochi della città e diocesi.
[Novara], 10 May 1805.
An apparently unrecorded broadside from the Piedmontese city of Novara on public health risks posed by leaving the faces of the dead uncovered, issued less than two months after the creation of Napoleon’s Kingdom of Italy.
£175
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ORIBASIUS.
Commentaria in Aphorismos Hippocratis … Ioannis Guinterij Andernaciis medici industria velut e profundissimis tenebris...
Paris, Simon de Colines, 1533.
First edition of this commentary on Hippocrates, bound with a richly annotated copy of Galen’s works in the translation by Thomas Linacre.
£1750
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OSBALDISTON, William Augustus.
The British Sportsman, or Nobleman, Gentleman, and Farmer’s Dictionary of Recreation and Amusement,...
London, J. Stead for the Proprietor, and sold by Champante & Whitrow and at the British Directory Office, [c. 1792-6].
First edition, issued in forty-two parts, of one of the first sporting dictionaries. ‘The pleasure and convenience of being well informed in the Recreations and Amusements of a Country Life, are objects of themselves sufficiently interesting, to justify the Author in presenting this Work to...
£650
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[PARACELSUS.
Aureoli Theophrasti Paracelsi eremitae philosophi summi operum latine redditorum tomus II … Basel, Pietro Perna, 1575.]
[Basel, Pietro Perna, 1575.]
The second half of a two-volume edition of the Latin works of Paracelsus (1493–1541), the great Swiss physician and alchemist, with profuse annotations by a number of early English readers.
£1750
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[PARKER, Richard Green; Junkichi KATAYAMA 片山 淳吉, editor.]
物理階梯 [Butsuri kaitei; 'A Guide to Physics'].
Gifu Prefecture, Ministry of Education, Mizunoesaru/Jinshin [i.e. 1872].
First edition, very rare, of Japan’s first elementary science textbook, a major catalyst for the introduction of Western physics after the Meiji Restoration.
£1750
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PARKER, Thomas Netherton.
Leaves out of the Book of a Country Gentleman.
Oswestry, W. Price, London, Longman & co., and Shrewsbury, Eddowes & Leake, 1847.
First and only edition of this very rare compilation by Parker of his farm and estate experiments and inventions, one of one hundred copies privately published, and presented by the author to the Earl of Powis.
£1950
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PASCOLI, Alessandro.
Nuovo metodo per introdursi ad imitazion de’ geometri con ordine, chiarezza, e brevità nelle piu sottili...
Venice, Andrea Poletti, 1721.
Scarce second edition (first 1702) of this work of philosophy and medicine by the Perugian scholar Pascoli (1669–1757).
£450
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PASTA, Giuseppe.
Della facoltà dell’oppio nelle malattie veneree, nuove ricerche cliniche …
Bergamo, dalla stamperia Antoine, 1788.
Very rare first edition of this treatise on the use of opium in the treatment of venereal disease by the Bergamo physician Giuseppe Pasta (1742–1823).
£350
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PASTEUR, Louis.
Visiting card with autograph note.
[No place, undated.]
With the autograph note ‘Avec ses remerciments très empressés’. 45 rue d’Ulm was the address of the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, where Pasteur began his education and where he taught intermittently before being appointed director of scientific studies in 1856.
£400
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[PHARMACOPOEIA.]
Pharmacopoea Taurinensis nunc primum edita jussu Augustissimi Regis.
Turin, Jean-Baptiste Chais, 1736.
First edition of this Turin pharmacopoeia, prepared by doctors at the city’s medical college at the order of Charles Emmanuel III, Duke of Savoy. Its first section comprises a list of all substances generally used in the preparation of medicines, with synonyms and notes to aid the user in distinguishing...
£1800
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[PHARMACOPOEIA.]
Apparatus medicaminum ad usum nosocomii Ticinensis anno MDCCXC.
Pavia, Joseph Bolzani, [1790].
Very rare first edition of this pharmacopoeia for use at the Ospedale Grande di San Matteo, also known as the Pietà, in Pavia, one of the foremost medical schools in Europe at the time of this publication. Founded in 1449, the Ospedale remained the centre of healthcare in the city for almost...
£750
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PLINY the Elder.
Historiae mundi libri XXXVII, cum castigationibus et adnotationibus doctiss. & variis praeterea lectionibus ex...
Frankfurt, Claude de Marne and heirs of Jean Aubry, 1608.
First Frankfurt edition of Pliny’s Natural History, here bound as an enormous single volume with strikingly decorated edges featuring acorns and scrolls.
£1400
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POCOCKE, Richard.
A Description of the East, and some other Countries. London: W. Bowyer for the Author, [‘and sold by J. and...
[Nourse, and J. Rivington’ (I)], 1743–1745.
First edition, demy folio issue. A successful churchman Pococke (1704-1765) is now best remembered as a traveller and mountaineer. His earliest journeys were undertaken between 1733 and 1736 through continental Europe. His ‘next and most ambitious journey, from 1737 to 1740, was to the Near...
£8000
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[POETRY.]
‘Trattato della [poesia Toscana]’.
[Asti?, 1780-1782.]
A manuscript treatise on the method of composing poetry in Italian, with numerous examples from renowned authors and eight apparently unpublished poems about horse-racing, with references to Arabian, Sardinian, English, and African horses, as well as to a firework display.
£750
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PONCELET, Jean-Victoire.
Traité des propriétés projectives des figures, ouvrage utile à ceux qui s’occupent des applications...
Paris, Gauthier-Villars, 1865-1866.
Second edition, revised and enlarged, Émile Borel’s prize copy. A finely bound, well-preserved, and prestigious association set.
Borel (1871–1956), the French mathematician best known for his work in measure theory and probability theory, was awarded several honours in the early...£950
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POPE, William.
Manuscript arithmetic schoolbook.
[Tiverton?] ‘Sunday Octr 24.th 1804’.
A manuscript arithmetic schoolbook belonging to one William Pope, very well preserved in its original stationery binding and wrapper, with provincially printed arithmetic tables as endpapers.
£850
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RAIMONDI, Eugenio.
Delle caccie … libri Quattro, aggiuntovi’n questa nuova ’mpressione il quinto libro della villa.
[Naples, Lazzaro Scoriggio, 1626.]
Second edition, expanded and extended, with a new series of striking hunting plates. The series of plates (attributable to Nicolas Perrey, who signs the title), showing composite scenes of hunters pursuing animals from birds and fish to lions and elephants, is wholly new, replacing the woodcut...
£2500
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RANK, Otto.
Der Mythus von der Geburt des Helden. Versuch einer psychologischen Mythendeutung.
Leipzig and Vienna, Franz Deuticke, 1909.
First edition of this psychoanalytical investigation of mythological heroism and the role of birth legends in the stories of heroes, by the German psychoanalyst Otto Rank (1884–1939), published as part of the series Schriften zur angewandten Seelenkunde under the editorship of Freud....
£100
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REFELL, A.
Trugbilder: Eine Anleitung Erscheinungen, auf optischer Täuschung beruhend, nach Belieben hervorzuheben und wissenschaftliche...
Stuttgart, Rieger, 1865.
First German edition, rare, of this fascinating study of mirages and optical illusions, in particular ghostly apparitions, in which the author attempts to demonstrate using the principles of optics how they might appear, with the aim of proving the absurdity of the superstitions to which they...
£1250