SURGEON TO KING LOUIS XIV. Cours d'Operations de Chirurgie, demontrees au Jardin Royal

Paris: Laurent d'Houry, 1707. First edition.

1707 RARE FIRST EDITION OF ILLUSTRATED MANUAL OF SURGICAL OPERATIONS BY SURGEON TO KING LOUIS XIV.

8 inches tall hardcover (octavo) [28]-746-[23] pages, 11 copper plate engravings (portrait frontispiece & 10 plates, including anatomy theater engraved by J. B. Scotin), 52 woodcuts in the text (numbered in sequence with copper plates, including un-numbered woodcut page 163 depicting stones from the kidneys of Pope Innocent XI in 1689. The remaining woodcuts and plates depict surgical instruments used in operations ranging from ophthalmic surgery to abdominal, obstetric, urologic, and orthopedic operations. Contemporary full leather binding, spine with raised bands, gilt tooling, and gilt red leather title. Corners and spine ends worn, cover edges abraded, joints cracked but binding firm, 1 mm pinhole through upper corner of first 100 leaves, light marginal browning to pages, and scattered light foxing. Lacking front and rear free endpapers and folding plate of the Jardin des Plantes, present in facsimile. A very good minus copy of this scarce first edition.

PIERRE DIONIS (1643?-1718) is described on title page as "premier chirurgien de feue Madame la Dauphine, a present de Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne, & Jure a Paris" [First surgeon to the late Madame La Dauphine, present surgeon to Madame Duchess of Burgundy, & licensed in Paris]. He was appointed surgeon by Louis XIV in 1672 to teach anatomy according to the circulation of blood while the faculty of medicine in Paris challenged the discovery of blood circulation by William Harvey. In 1680 he became surgeon to Queen Maria Theresa of Austria. "Dionis has been acclaimed as the author of a surgical textbook that opened a new era in which French surgical teaching dominated Europe. He began his career as demonstrator in anatomy and surgery at the Jardin du Roi, in his time the premier teaching institution in those sciences. He later became a court surgeon. During the course of the 18th century, French surgery gained ascendancy over French academic medicine and also on the international stage. English surgery, likewise, made great progress. There was a very productive dialogue between medical scientists and teachers in both countries, assisted by textbooks in translation. The French Revolution demolished the medical and surgical institutions established under the old regime, but French surgery emerged from the rubble to play a great part in the birth of modern clinical medicine."--D. Simpson: Pierre Dionis and the Franco-British dialogue in surgery. ANZ J Surg. 2003 73(5):336-40.

GARRISON-MORTON No. 5575. "Dionis taught operative surgery at the Jardin-du-Roi, Paris, a famous training ground for surgeons. English translation, London, 1710".