pdf - Roger Gaskell Rare Books

copy; the portrait appears to be original to this copy, though more
usually this work has a later state of the portrait with Glisson’s age
altered to 80.
Binding: Contemporary sprinkled calf, marbled edges. Old rebacking,
now worn and headcap chipped, sides and corners worn, back broken,
new endleaves.
Provenance: Inscription ‘Liber T. Harbech’ on titlepage, probably
Thomas Harbech (X. 1669, see below); inscription on verso of title
recording the gift of Dr William Standfast to the Library in the Charity
School Chamber in Nottingham; Walter Pagel’s signature, undated.
First edition. Advertised in the Michaelmas Term Catalogue (October–
December) at 10s bound (TC I, 257). Wing G859; ESTC R9112;
Garrison–Morton 579; Wellcome III, p. 126; Krivatsy 4828.
A work on the digestive organs in which ‘Glisson introduced the idea of
irritability as a speciWc property of all human tissue, a hypothesis which had
no eVect upon contemporary physiology, but which was later demonstrated
experimentally by Haller’ (Garrison–Morton).
‘The doctrine of irritability does not exhaust the content of the Tractatus de
ventriculo et intestinis, which, apart from the treatise indicated by the title, also
contains a treatise on skin, hair, nails, fat, abdominal muscles, peritoneum,
and omentum. Together the Anatomia hepatis and the Tractatus de ventriculo et
intestinis constitute a monumental work on general anatomy and on anatomy
and physiology of the digestive organs. Moreover, in the latter treatise, Glisson
goes far beyond the stomach and intestinal tract. Apart from discussing the
theory of digestion (there is even an appendix on fermentation), Glisson
manages to include theories of embryogenesis (in which the relationship to
Harvey is particularly interesting).’ (Owsei Temkin, DSB 5:427a.)
The Wrst owner of this copy is surely Dr Thomas Harbech, who defended
a dissertation on rheumatism at Leiden under Francis de la Boe Sylviuys in
1669. Thomas Guidot mentions him in A century of observations: containing
further discoveries of the nature of the hot waters at Bathe (1676, and like the
present work published by Henry Brome) along with Drs Thomas Witherley
and Nathaniel Highmore (B4r). He was a witness, with Francis Hall, to the
will of Simon Lawrence (1688). He perhaps practiced outside London as he
was not a member of the College of Physicians.
The plates in this copy appear to have been supplied from another copy:
they are slightly smaller than the text leaves and the patterns of staining do
not match the adjoining text. On the other hand the portrait appears to be
undisturbed and is the Wrst state of the plate with Glisson’s age given as 75.
Faithorne’s engraved portrait of Glisson, after his own painting now at the
Royal College of Physicians, (Chaplin, Descripitive catalogue of the Portraits...
in the Royal College of Physicians, 1926, p. 20; Wellcome, Portraits, 1973, 1139
is less certain of the attribution), was Wrst used as the frontispiece to Glisson’s
Tractatus de Natura Substantiae Energetica (1672, see nos 69 and 70 above)
with his age given as 75. Most copies of the second edition of that work and
the present work, both published 5 years later in 1677, have the second state
of the plate with Glisson’s age altered to 80.