Catalogue 38, Part 3 - Jeremy Norman's HistoryofScience.com

the work with admiration. In 1777 a second edition of
Rey’s Essays, edited by Nicolas Gobet, was published in
Paris; this edition—the earliest obtainable—has also
become rare (see Duveen, Bibliotheca alchemica et
chemica, p. 505 and Neville, Historical Chemical
Library, II, p. 372).
Douglas McKie, in the historical introduction to his
facsimile edition of Rey’s Essays (1951), relates what little
is known of Rey’s life, describing in detail the scant
documentary evidence that remains, and reproducing
examples of Rey’s handwriting. The University of
Montpellier, where Rey studied medicine from 1605 to
1609, preserves a signed 6-line inscription in Latin
written by Rey when he matriculated at the University
(1605), as well as four other documents bearing Rey’s
signature: two consilia (1608 and 1609), Rey’s licence
en medicine (1609) and a document Rey signed upon
receiving his doctorate (1609). Apart from these, the
only other signed autograph document of Rey’s is the
one we are offering here,
containing his signed prescriptions and dietary for
a distinguished patient living near Toulouse,
Baron de Fourquevaux, whose father had been
Governor of Narbonne and ambassador of several
French Kings, and had escorted to Scotland Marie
de Guise, bride of James V and mother of Mary
Stewart . . . After 1623 we have no further record
of Rey until the appearance of his Essays, dated
from Le Bugue, lieu de ma naissance, on 1 January
1630 (McKie, p. xix).
It is hard to imagine any autograph in the history of
science that would be rarer than this! Our 2-1/2 page
autograph document was at one time owned by Dr.
Pierre Lemay, who published a study of Rey in the Bullétin
de la Société française d’histoire de la médecine 32
(1938): 148; see McKie, p. xix (n). Dictionary of Scientific
Biography. Partington, History of Chemistry, II, pp.
631-36. 40656
Essential Reference on Anatomical
Illustration
90. Roberts, K. B. & J. D. W. Tomlinson.
The fabric of the body: European traditions of
anatomical illustration. xx, 638pp. Illustrated.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. 270 x 220
80