Science
Contact Andrea Mazzocchi
Science at Quaritch is broadly defined, ranging from medicine, anatomy, pharmacology (including herbals) and natural history to astronomy, physics, chemistry and mathematics.
An interest in the origins of modern chemistry has led to a specialisation in works on alchemy and distillation, and from there we have also branched out into occultism and hermeticism. We have developed an interest in gastronomy and books on nutrition and wine, an area which over the years has become one of our specialities.-
CREVE, Carl Caspar.
Vom Metallreize, einem neuentdeckten untrüglichen Prüfungsmittel des wahren Todes. Mit einer Kupfertafel.
Leipzig and Gera, Wilhelm Heinsius, 1796.
First edition of this uncommon contribution to the medical literature in which Creve proposes a new method of ascertaining death using a metal conductor attached to muscle tissue, part of the body of research that inspired Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
£550
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CUVIER, Georges, and Edward BLYTH (editor).
The animal Kingdom, arranged after its Organization, forming a natural...
London, William S. Orr & Co., 1851.
Third Blyth edition of Cuvier’s Règne animal. A seminal work of natural history and comparative anatomy, the Règne animal was first published in December 1816 and translated into English in parts issued from 1824 to 1835. The work was edited and enlarged in 1840 by the zoologist Edward...
£175
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DALLMEYER, Thomas.
Telephotography: An elementary Treatise on the Construction and Application of the telephotographic Lens …...
London, William Heinemann, 1899.
First edition of the authoritative treatise on telephotography by the inventor of the first practical telephotographic lens.
£200
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DARWIN, Charles.
The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication.
London, John Murray, 1868.
First edition, first issue, an important presentation copy to the naturalist and journalist William Bernhardt Tegetmeier, who provided Darwin with detailed information on poultry breeding and other subjects and who arranged for artists to produce some of the book’s illustrations.
£70000
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[DE LA GUTHÈRE.]
Du bon usage des eaux de Baignieres.
Agen, Antoine Bru … 1680.
Scarce second edition, revised, a guide to the waters at Bagnères-de-Bigorre in southwest France by a local physician, with a new dedication to the ten-year-old Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, duc de Maine (1670–1736), son of Louis XIV and his mistress Madame de Montespan.
£600
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DE NASCA, Giuseppe.
Intorno all’uso del laudano concentrato del cav. Quadri per curare parecchie malattie degli occhi. Memoria...
Naples, Giovanni Battista Seguim, 1828.
Very rare tract on the use of concentrated laudanum in the treatment of various eye complaints by the Sicilian physician Giuseppe de Nasca (1803–1893).
£550
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DEPARCIEUX, Antoine.
Essai sur les probabilités de la durée de la vie humaine; d’où l’on déduit la manière de déterminer...
Paris, chez les frères Guerin, 1746.
A large, crisp, and illustrious copy of the first edition of a classic of statistical science: it is the first to define expectation of life – which Deparcieux calls ‘la vie moyenne’ – and the first to contain life tables for men and women.
£3000
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[DEZALLIER D’ARGENVILLE, Antoine Joseph.]
Conchyliologie nouvelle et portative, ou collection de coquilles propres à orner les...
Paris, ‘chez Regnard, Imprimeur de l’Académie Françoise’, 1767.
First edition, uncommon, of this pocket guide to the then relatively new craze for collecting shells.
£400
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DIKREITER, Otto, and Renée SINTENIS (illustrator).
Du und Dein Pferd: Ein anmutiges, belehrendes, und ergötzliches...
Berlin, Königsberg, & Leipzig, Kanter Verlag, [c. 1938].
First edition (seventh to tenth thousand) of a charmingly illustrated work. The collection of short pieces of poetry and prose relating to horses, gathered from sources ranging from Shakespeare and Goethe to Xenophon and the Koran, is illustrated by the German artist Renée Sintenis (1888–1965), best...
£80
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DONNOLI, Francesco Alfonso.
De iis, qui semel in die cibum capiunt. Liber in quo demonstratur quibus corporibus, talis vivendi...
Venice, Benedetto Miloco, 1674.
First edition, an uncut copy of Donnoli’s work on the restricted eating of only one meal a day, discussing its suitability for different people and its effects on physiology.
£1450
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DUTROCHET, Henri.
Recherches sur l’endosmose et sur la cause physique de ce phénomène (Extrait des Annales de Chimie et de...
[Paris, imprimerie de Veuve Thuau, 1832.]
An interesting article on endosmosis by the important French physiologist Henri Dutrochet (1776–1847), renowned for his work on osmosis and cell theory. ‘Although the conditions of Dutrochet’s experiments were rather simple and did not allow of great accuracy, he made the first important steps...
£175
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DVIGUBSKY, Ivan Alekseevich.
Опытъ естественной исторіи всѣхъ животныхъ Россійской...
Moscow, University Press, 1831.
First edition, rare, one of a series of six works on the flora and fauna of the Russian Empire, published 1829–1833 under the same general title. The present volume covers molluscs, including cephalopods and gastropods.
£2000
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ÉCOLE DE MEDECINE DE MONTPELLIER.
A collection of eighty-seven doctoral dissertations presented to and defended at the Medical...
Montpellier, various publishers, 1800–1810.
An extraordinary collection, bound up very soon after the last was published, of eighty-seven doctoral dissertations presented to the ancient medical school at Montpellier in the first decade of the nineteenth century.
£1250
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EDWARDS, James.
The hemiptera-homoptera (cicadina and psyllina) of the British Isles: A descriptive Account of the Families, Genera,...
London, Ballantyne, Hanson, & Co. for L. Reeve & Co., 1896.
First edition of Edwards’s survey of British hemiptera-heteroptera.
£75
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EMSWORTH, D.
Le cheval & le chien.
Brussels, widow Parent & Son, and Paris, Charles Tanera, 1865.
Very rare French treatise on horses and dogs. The majority of the work is devoted to horses, discussing their breeds, diseases, training, and racing, with a chapter on the Rarey method.
£375
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EUCLID.
Στοιχειων βιβλ. ιε εκ των θεωνος συνουσιων. Εις του αυτου του πρωτον,...
Basel, Johannes Herwagen, September 1533.
Editio princeps of Euclid, the ‘oldest mathematical textbook still in common use today’ (PMM), a work which ‘has exercised an influence upon the human mind greater than that of any other work except the Bible’ (DSB).
£18000
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[FARSARI, Adolfo, Studio of.]
Japanese flower seller.
[Yokohama?, c. 1887.]
A striking image of a Japanese flower vendor, with delicate contemporary hand colouring, most notably to the flowers. After time spent in America, where he fought in the Civil War, Adolfo Farsari (1841 - 1898) moved to Japan in 1873, establishing himself in Yokohama. In 1885 he opened his own photographic...
£200
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FENNING, Daniel.
The Ready Reckoner; or Trader’s most useful Assistant, in buying and selling all sorts of Commodities either...
London, S. Crowder, and Salisbury, B.C. Collins, 1785.
First edition thus, edited by the mathematician and almanack-maker Joseph Moon of Salisbury.
£250
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FINÉ, Oronce.
Opere di Orontio Fineo … divise in cinque parti, arimetica, geometria, cosmografia, e orivoli, tradotte da Cosimo...
Venice, Francesco Franceschi, 1587.
First edition in Italian of the works of Oronce Finé, including the translations of his Protomathesis (1532) on arithmetic, geometry, cosmography, and sundials, and De speculo ustorio (1551) on burning mirrors, the only time all five texts appear together in any vernacular language.
£2750
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[FIRST AID – RAILWAYS.]
Ministère des chemins de fer, postes et télégraphes. Administration des chemins de fer de l’état. Manuel...
Ghent, F.& R. Buyck, 1912.
First separate edition, seemingly unrecorded, of this guide to first aid in a railway context, published by the state railway administration of Belgium.
£195