Principes de chirurgie...nouvelle édition corrigé & augmentée

by Georges de La Faye (George de Lafaye)

Paris: Pierre-Guillaume Cavelier, 1757

xxiv, 512 p. | 12mo | a^12 A-2V^8/4 173 x 97 mm

A later edition of the Paris surgeon’s popular treatise, which first appeared in 1738 and was widely reprinted and translated. According to a prefatory note, this edition contains a good deal of new material rendering it more useful for students. Dozens of chapters cover everything an 18th-century surgeon should know—from the basic definition of the practice, to its required instruments and apparatus, to recommended actions before, during, and after operation. We didn’t see anything about hand washing, but the author does belabor the importance of gaining the patient’s confidence and reassuring them that the operation is, in fact, necessary. To be sure, the book reflects the growing professionalism of surgeons, who had long occupied the lower rungs of the medical ladder. “In eighteenth-century France, for example, surgery broke free of the guild system. Lectures and practical demonstrations, combined with walking the wards of hospitals, comprised the education of ‘modern’ surgeons” (Lindemann). These were not your 16th-century barber surgeons.

PROVENANCE: Penned in an early hand facing the title is a topical treatment for cancerous tumors, salt of tartar dissolved in water: Le sel fixe de tartre a la doze de deux gros disout dans une pinte d'eau est[?] un exelent remede pour fond de les tumeurs squireusses et cancereuses… We do not find this particular treatment in the printed text, though the owner did take an interest in its chapters on médicamens, evidenced by brief marginalia on p. 161 and 165. The handwritten recipe does, however, resemble a remedy reported in the August 1744 issue of the Mercure de France and attributed to one Levret (presumably the acclaimed obstetrician André Levret). Here it’s worth noting that certain medication, topical treatments especially, did fall within the surgeon’s remit. The addition of handwritten therapies to all kinds of books—not just medical books—was not unusual, and reflected the simple fact that one’s private home was typically the first site of treatment. Still, as an example of the medical book as bespoke storehouse of further medical knowledge, we do like this one.  ¶ Beneath this, in another hand, is the early ownership inscription of one François Bioche, maréchal at Fougerolles. And with a charming early ink drawing on p. iv beneath an old juvenile inscription (Ce present livre est a moy[?] comme pari est au roy). It’s also a little disturbing. Two heads atop a sword? Ownership signature of one Davoudiere on the front fly-leaf, some initials on the title page, and a blank page at front covered in old scribbles.

CONDITION: Contemporary leather, the spine tooled in gold; marbled endpapers. ¶ Title soiled, and mild marginal dampstaining. Leather a little pitted, and the extremities worn (and the bottom corner of the rear board chewed?), some minimal chipping at the spine ends.

REFERENCES: Mary Lindemann, Medicine and Society in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge Univ, 2010), p. 135, 241 (“Medical practice for virtually everyone, however, began at home,” whether as self-help, help from friends and family, etc. “Every household treasured its own assortment of time-tested remedies for everyday ills.”); Matthew Ramsey, Professional and popular medicine in France, 1770-1830 (Cambridge Univ, 1988), p. 19 (“Physicians were traditionally considered to form the apex of a health-care pyramid…Subordinated to their oversight were the craft of surgery, one of the ‘mechanical arts,’ and the apothecary’s trade. Surgeons concerned themselves with manual operations, which at this time were generally ‘external’: bleeding, lancing, treating fractures and dislocations, and caring for wounds; they also applied topical remedies, mainly for skin diseases, and by tradition treated venereal disease.”); Mercure de France (Aug 1744), p. 1808-1809; Hannah Marcus, Forbidden Books: Medicine, Science, and Censorship in Early Modern Italy (Univ of Chicago, 2020), p. 14 (“Physicians’ libraries were repositories of books, notes, and notes in books, which serve now to document the intellectual work of these early modern practitioners of medicine”)

Item #579