PARÉ AMBROISE 1572 Cinq Livres de Chirurgie Colophon leaf

Sale 2107 - Lot 268

Unsold

Estimate: $ 20,000 - $ 30,000

PARÉ, AMBROISE. Cinq Livres de Chirurgie. Title-page within woodcut historiated border with full-page portrait of Paré on verso; 41 woodcut text illustrations, mostly full-page, depicting anatomical subjects (including 2 full-length skeletons copied from Vesalius), surgical and orthopedic instruments and procedures, and distilling apparatus. [24], 470, [2] pages, with final colophon leaf in facsimile on laid paper. 8vo, later 18th-century tree sheep, flat spine gilt with morocco lettering pieces, top of spine chipped, joints cracked; occasional marginal soiling and dampstains, several tiny wormholes through opening leaves not impairing legibility, worming in blank lower inner corners at end, minor repairs on front free endpaper and in blank margins of last few leaves, 19th-century signatures, armorial embossed stamps, and booklabel of Dr[?] Challan de Belval. Paris: André Wechel, 1572

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Additional Details

exceedingly scarce first edition of an important early surgical treatise by paré. "Contains all new material; the first description of femoral neck fracture; the first systematic work since the ancients, with Pare's own added contributions, on the art of bandaging and the treatment of fractures and dislocations. It also contains Pare's 'Apologie touchant les playes faictes par harquebuzades' in reply to Julien Le Paulmier's attack on his methods of treating wounds"--Hamby, Ambroise Paré, page 208. Doe 19; Tchemerzine (1977) V, 37 ("de la plus grande rareté"); unseen by older authors on Paré such as Malgaigne, Le Paulmier, Paget, and Packard. Since 1916 ABPC has recorded the sale of only 2 copies: one in 1963 in New York, and another (incomplete, bound with Paré's Dix Livres de Chirurgie, also incomplete) in 1981 in London.