Chirurgie francoise... Annotated by Pierre Marchand

Daléchamps, Jacques (1513-88). Chirurgie françoise . . . avec plusieurs figures des instrumens necessaires pour l'operation manuelle . . . 8vo. [52], 933, [5]pp. Lacking leaf y1 (pp. 337-338). Woodcut author's portrait and over 300 woodcut text illustrations. Lyons: Guillaume Rouille, 1569. 160 x 103 mm. 17th-century sheep, gilt spine, some wear and rubbing. Minor worming in first few leaves, title a bit soiled, running heads on leaves N3-N4 trimmed. Very good. Extensively annotated by Lyonnais master surgeon Pierre Marchand (d. 1616), who signed his name on the last leaf. Old library stamp (Bibliothèque de Adn. de Gasparin) on title.

First Edition. A remarkable copy of Daléchamp's important manual of Renaissance surgery, extensively annotated by one of Daléchamp's contemporaries—Lyonnais master surgeon Pierre Marchand, who signed his name on the last leaf ("ce pr[ese]nt livre appartient a moy Pierre Marchand compagnon barbier a Lyon"). This is the first time we have handled a surgical work from this era annotated by an identified contemporary surgeon. Daléchamp, a pupil of Guillaume Rondelet, received his doctorate in medicine from the University of Montpellier in 1547; he settled in Lyons in 1552, where he remained for the rest of his life. His Chirurgie françoise, which went through four editions between 1569 and 1610, is based on the sixth book of Paul of Aegina's De re medica, which he translated into French and augmented with commentary by Aretaus, Celsus, Avicenna and Albucasis. He attempted to set the surgery of the ancient work in context, and compared the surgical knowledge of antiquity with that of his own day. Daléchamp's treatise includes numerous illustrations of surgical instruments, some of which he credited to Ambroise Paré and to Jacques Roy; however, Daléchamps also introduced instruments of his own design, which Paré acknowledged in his own works.

The annotator of this copy, Pierre Marchand, was a master surgeon in Lyons in the last decades of the 16th century; see J.-B. Montfalcon, Histoire de la ville de Lyon (1851), p. 1392. Marchand acquired Daléchamp's work when he was still a "compagnon barbier," or member of the barbers' guild. His annotations appear for the most part in the first 300 pages of the book, devoted to wound treatment, trauma, abscess and surgery of the nose, ears, eyes and genitals—all of which fell within the purview of the Renaissance barber-surgeon's practice. Marchand appears to have been particularly interested in ophthalmology, heavily annotating Daléchamp's section on diseases of the eye (pp. 40-110): On p. 48 he points out the dangers of eyelid surgery; on p. 57 he improved the book's illustration of ectropion by marking where to make the necessary incisions to repair it; on p. 66 he noted a method to limit "fluxion" and soothe pain when performing surgery of the eyelids; on p. 82 he wrote a recipe in Latin for "green or red" eyedrops to cure corneal abscess; on pp. 94-95 he provided a recipe for "Dion eye drops" and corrected the recipe for "eye drops of Nileus; on p. 100 he commented extensively on Daléchamp's illustration of cataract needles; and on p. 106 he made similar comments on an illustration of an cautery used to treat lacrimal fistulas. Marchand also annotated some of Daléchamp's descriptions of genital and ear surgery, and the last pages of the book contain Marchand's notes on the use of suction cups, particularly in cases of snakebite. Bonnichon, Fontaine and Vons, "La Chirurgie françoise de Jacques Daléchamps, commentateur de Paul d'Égine," Histoire des sciences médicales 52 (2018): 91-98. Garrison-Morton.com 13227.