pdf - Roger Gaskell Rare Books

Provenance: About 50 words of contemporary annotation and 3 pen
and ink diagrams added.
First edition. The work was reprinted at Amsterdam in 1669. Wellcome
V, p. 181; Garrison–Morton 577; LeFanu, Notable Medical Books from
the Lilly Library p. 79.
This is one of the most remarkable of the scientiWc classics because it made
seminal contributions to three quite distinct Welds: myology, embryology
and geology. First, Stensen shows muscular contraction is not due to an
inXux of nerve Xuid, but that on the contrary, the volume of muscle does
not increase during contraction. His purely geometrical description of
muscular contraction, written in collaboration with the mathematician
Vincenzio Viviani (1622–1703), laid the foundation of muscle mechanics.
The next section of the book describes the dissection of a shark’s head,
shown in a memorable and often reproduced plate. This led Stensen to the
discovery that the so­called tongue­stones, common on Malta, are fossilised
shark’s teeth. Discussing how fossils are formed, Stensen outlines the basic
principles of modern geology and gained for the work the title of ‘The
earliest geological treatise’ (Garboe, quoted in Garrison–Morton). Finally,
there is a study in comparative anatomy demonstrating the correspondence
between the roe of dogWsh and the ovaries in women. This was the Wrst
recognition of the egg­producing function of the female ovary.
Stensen was born in Denmark and studied under Thomas Bartholin
at Copenhagen. His Wrst work on the muscles, De musculis et glandulis
observationum, was published at Copenhagen in 1664. He then settled in
Florence, where the present work was published, and two years later the
same publisher issued his classic treatise on geology and paleontology, De
solido (Florence 1669), intended as an introduction to a larger work that
was never written. Stensen was a Wne draughtsman and presumably the
illustrations in the present work were engraved from his drawings.
177
TACHENIuS, Otto (X. 1664­1699)
Otto Tachenius his Hippocrates chymicus discovering the ancient
foundation of the late viperine salt with his Clavis thereunto annexed.
Translated by J. W.
London: printed and are to be sold by Nath: Crouch at the George at the
lower end of Cornhill over against the Stocks Market, 1677.
4to: [A] 4 (–[A]2) a–b 4 B–R 4 S 2 ; 2A–2T 4 , 153 leaves, pp. [22] 122 [10];
[14] 120 (i.e. 124, 15–18 repeated) [14]. Engraved title printed on A1
signed ‘Johannes Drapontier sculpsit’; 2A1 sectional titlepage, ‘Otto
Tachenius his clavis’ dated 1677; errata on last leaf.
196 x 140mm. Worm tracks and holes in the margins aVecting the
engraved title and some shoulder notes, fore margin of engraved title
shaved; errata leaf strengthened with Japanese tissue on both sides;
some light staining and soiling and light browning.