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.-
STENUIT, Alfred, and G. de VOGHEL.
Manuel de sauvetage dans les mines. Notions théoriques sur les accidents et le sauvetage....
Tamines, Duculot-Roulin, 1909.
Only edition of this attractively illustrated and very rare guide to life-saving in mines, by the Belgian mining engineers Stenuit and de Voghel. Divided into three parts, the book opens with explanations of the possible hazards, ranging from asphyxiation to explosions and underground fires, as...
£350
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SURTEES, Robert Smith.
The Horseman’s Manual, being a Treatise on Soundness, the Law of Warranty, and generally on the Laws relating...
London, M.A. Pittman for Alfred Miller, 1831.
First edition of Surtees’s first work, the only publication to bear his name, from the family of the dedicatee. Though best known for his sporting articles and novels, Robert Smith Surtees (1805–1864) was, alongside his landed interests, a respected jurist in County Durham, serving as justice...
£1250
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SWOBODA, Hermann.
Die Perioden des menschlichen Organismus: in ihrer psychologischen und biologischen Bedeutung.
Leipzig, Deuticke, 1904.
First editions, all rare, the first two being foundational works in the formation of the theory of biorhythm. Swoboda’s early studies on the recurrence or periodicity in phenomena acquired a psychological character and application in his work since his encounter and brief experience of analysis with...
£200
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[SYPHILIS.]
Della tabe dorsale ovvero della cura della consunzione negli uomini e nelle donne con la spiegazione de’ sintomi,...
Venice, Graziosi, 1785.
First Italian translation, uncommon, of Tabes dorsalis: or, the cause of consumption in young men and women, by ‘a Physician of Bristol’.
£135
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[TACCONI, Gaetano.]
‘Medicae inst[ructio]nes’, ‘Tractatus de febribus’, and ‘Compendiosa nonulloru[m] m[or]boru[m] peculiariu[m]...
[Bologna, Italy,] 1739.
An extensive manuscript compendium of apparently unpublished medical texts compiled by a student at the Archiginnasio of Bologna who studied under Gaetano Tacconi (1689–1782), comprising notes on the prescription and preparation of medication, on fevers, and on a wide variety of illnesses. The...
£1250
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TALIANI, Giuseppe.
Orologi riflessi, per mezo di un picciolo specchio parallelo o perpendicolare all’orizonte.
Macerata, Filippo Camacci, 1648.
Only recorded edition, rare, of this work by mathematician Taliani on the construction of sundials in the interior of buildings, to be achieved through mirrors reflecting solar rays – our copy uniquely furnished with a contemporary large hand-drawn representation of the face of a sundial. ...
£950
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TAYLOR, Alfred Swaine.
On the Processes for detecting Blood in medico-legal Cases.
[London, Guy’s Hospital Reports, 1870.]
Taylor’s own offprint of this interesting article on detecting blood ‘for the purposes of pathology and legal medicine’, in which he publishes, for the first time, a description of the spectroscopic process developed by the eminent microscopist and geologist Henry Clifton Sorby (1826–1908),...
£350
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TISSOT, Samuel August André David.
Traité de l'épilepsie ...
Paris, P.F. Didot, 1770.
The scarce first edition of Tissot’s important monograph on epilepsy, the “first book on this subject to show all the characteristics of Enlightenment in medicine. Written in the French vernacular, it is at once learned, scientific, and readable...” (Temkin, The Falling Sickness p. 229).
£800
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[VACCINATION.]
Agli abitanti del dipartimento dell’Ombrone proclama del Comitato Centrale di Vaccina sedente in Siena. Abitanti...
Siena, Onorato Porri, 1808.
A seemingly unrecorded broadside promoting smallpox vaccination, issued in the short-lived Italian department of Ombrone under the First French Empire by the Central Vaccination Committee in Siena.
£650
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WALLIS, William.
The Western Gentleman’s Farrier, containing Remedies for the different Diseases to which Horses are incident...
Troy (OH), John T. Tullis, 1838.
Second edition of an American work on farriery, with diseases found only in the Western States including ‘big head’ and ‘nasal polypi’. First published in 1832 on the observation that ‘most of the present works on Farriery, or more especially those adapted to our western climate, are...
£250
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WHITE, James.
A Compendium of the veterinary Art, containing an accurate Description of all the Diseases to which the Horse is...
London, J. Badcock and Longman & Co., and Canterbury, W. Bristow, [c. 1804].
Sixth edition. Evidently a successful text, further editions appeared soon after the work’s first publication and would eventually be expanded into four volumes (the present edition is often found accompanied by The materia medica and pharmacopoeia).
£225
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WHITE, James.
A Compendium of the veterinary Art, containing an accurate Description of all the Diseases to which the Horse is...
Canterbury, W. Bristow for J. Badcock, London, 1802.
First edition of one of the first works on ‘the veterinary art’. With the formalisation of the increasingly academic subject of equine medicine and the foundation of the Royal Veterinary College in the late eighteenth century, the term ‘veterinary’ soon supplanted ‘farriery’, first...
£275
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WOLFERSTAN, Stanford.
An Enquiry into the Causes of Diseases in General, and the Disturbances of the Humors in Man’s Body …...
London, Printed for Thomas Basset … 1692.
First and only edition, very rare, of a short medical work on blood, air, and poison by Stanford Wolferstan (b. 1652), youngest son of the noted book collector Frances Wolfreston (1607–1677).
£2850
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WOOD, John.
A new compendious Treatise of Farriery, wherein are set forth in a plain, familiar, and natural Manner the Disorders...
London, Hewett for the author, and sold by J. Brindley, T. Payne, and R. Withy & J. Ryall, 1757.
First edition of a treatise on farriery by John Wood, formerly groom to the King of Sardinia. The contemporary manuscript notes appear in several hands belonging to members of the Green family of Uppington in Shropshire, though the majority match inscriptions by Barnard and Jane Green. Several...
£650
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ZEVIANI, Giovanni Verardo.
Del flato a favore degl’ipocondriaci.
Verona, Antonio Andreoni, 1755.
Rare first edition of the first medical treatise on tympanites, a distention of the abdomen caused by the accumulation of gas in the gastro-intestinal tract, linking it with hypochondria and melancholy.
£650