l'Anatomie du Corps Humain. Avec ses Maladies, & les Remedes pour les guerir by Saint-Hilaire, sieur de - 1684: Nouvelle Edition augmentee de plusieurs observations de Phisique curieuses & recherchees, & de Figures Anatomiques & Chimiques. Avec les Maladies externes sujettes a la Chirurgie, & un grand nombre de Remedes specifiques, & experimentez

1684 SCARCE TREATISE ON ANATOMY DEDICATED TO KING LOUIS XIV, WITH FINE COPPER PLATE ENGRAVINGS--COPY OF PROMINENT NEW YORK SURGEON.

7 3/4 inches tall hardcover, full leather binding, spine with raised bands, gilt compartments and gilt leather title label; engraved frontis of anatomist with cadaver, surrounded by students, with putti in foreground preparing medications; dedication to the King (Louis XIV) with head-piece engraving depicting the Palace of Versailles, his residence as of 1682 (2 years prior to publication of this book), as well as highlighting the sun, symbol chosen by Louis XIV (also symbol of Apollo, god of peace and the arts). Collation: [32], 581, [1], 55 copper plate engravings with descriptive text. Bookplates to front paste-down, one inscribed "a mon ancien ami--Willard Parker, M.D., temoignage de mon respect" (bottom of bookplate with donor obscured by second bookplate of the Library of the Medical Society of the County of Kings, 1911. Covers well worn with corner boards exposed, joints cracked but boards holding well, spine ends frayed, lacking front flyleaf, binding tight, small institutional library handstamp bottom of title page, light browning to page edges, that are crisp and unmarked; overall very good contents in a worn contemporary binding.

SIEUR DE SAINT-HILAIRE (1652? - 1740) reputedly served as the anonymous "editor" of this volume that saw 3 editions (1680, 1684, and 1698).

PROVENANCE: WILLARD PARKER (1800–1884) was a surgeon of the United States, for many years a professor at the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons and other schools. He became the private pupil of John C. Warren, the professor of surgery in Harvard, and received his M.D. from Harvard in 1830. In 1839 he became professor of surgery in the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons, which post he resigned after a service of 30 years. In the spring of 1840, appreciating the want of practical demonstration in teaching surgery, and the difficulty in securing cases for illustration in colleges that were unconnected with hospitals, he visited with his students two or three of the city dispensaries, selected interesting cases, and had them taken to the College of Physicians and Surgeons, where the anatomical theatre offered superior advantages for making diagnoses and performing operations before the class. This was the first college clinic in the United States. He organized the New York Academy of Medicine in 1847, of which he was president for many years after 1856. In 1846, with Dr. James R. Wood, he secured the necessary legislation to reorganize the city almshouse into what is now Bellevue Hospital, and was appointed one of its visiting surgeons.