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.-
COPPERTHWAITE, R.H.
The Turf and the Racehorse, describing Trainers and Training, the Stud-Farm, the Sires and Brood-Mares of the...
London, Day & Son, 1865.
First edition of a scarce account of mid-nineteenth-century race horses, including notes and anecdotes on breeding, buying, training, and racing, and with an extensive table of ‘the tried brood mares of the day’, showing their pedigrees and progeny.
£160
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[CORFU.]
Notificazione. Uffizio della segreteria del governo. Corfu, 7 Maggio 1816 …
Corfu, ‘en te typographia tes dioikeseos’, [1816].
A seemingly unrecorded bilingual broadside, in parallel Italian and Greek, reporting on cases of plague in the district of Leftimo on the island of Corfu, issued during the British protectorate in May 1816 and printed in the capital at the government press.
£375
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COSTANZO, Gaetano.
Qualche considerazione sui mezzi curativi adoperati nel ripartimento delle donne al manicomio di Palermo …
Palermo, Giovanni Lorsnaider, 1876.
Very rare first and only edition of this fascinating treatise on the care of women at the asylum for the insane in Palermo, by its chief medical officer Dr Gaetano Costanzo.
£350
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COX, John Roalfe.
Horses in Accident and Disease: Notes and Sketches.
Edinburgh, George Waterston & Sons for David Douglas, 1892.
First edition of an elegantly illustrated veterinary work. An early advocate of the use of chloroform anaesthetic when operating on horses, J. Roalfe Cox here offers tender line drawings and brief descriptions of twenty-eight equine ailments.
£70
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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...
£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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[DE LA GUTHÈRE.]
Du bon usage des eaux de Baignieres.
Agen, Antoine Bru … 1680.
Second edition, revised, a guide to the waters at Bagnères-de-Bigorre in South-West France by a local physician, dedicated to the young 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 MOIVRE, Abraham.
The Doctrine of Chances: or, a Method of Calculating the Probability of Events in Play.
London, W. Pearson for the author, 1718.
First edition, a very good copy with likely Virginian provenance, of this classic on the theory of probability and game theory, inscribed in multiple hands aboard the sixty-gun warship HMS Dunkirk, a human moment of indulgence stolen between the drudgery and danger of life aboard a Royal Naval ship.
£14000
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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),...
£80
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[DONN, Benjamin.]
‘The Mathematicians Pocket Companion. Or a collection of the most valuable Theorems … The whole collected...
[?Bideford], 1754.
A comprehensive manuscript compendium on mathematics and its practical applications – including architecture, astronomy, book-keeping, dioptrics, hydraulics, mechanics, music, and shipbuilding – most likely compiled by the mathematician and mathematics teacher Benjamin Donn, with examples from...
£1750
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DURHAM, Arthur E.
Transverse Section of Wood (Salisburia).
Circa 1870s.
A rare and attractive microphotograph of a transverse section of Ginkgo biloba wood, traditionally used in Chinese medicine and homeopathy.
£1100
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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...
£175
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DVIGUBSKII, Ivan Alekseevich.
Opyt estestvennoi istorii vsekh zhivotnykh Rossiiskoi Imperii … S izobrazheniiami zhivotnykh. [Fly-title:]...
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.
£1750
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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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EHRLICH, Paul.
Autograph letter, signed, addressed to ‘herr hospitalmeister’.
[Frankfurt,] ‘Westendstrasse 62’, [no date].
A brief note by the bacteriologist Paul Ehrlich (1854–1915), pioneer of haematology and discoverer of salvarsan, to a local hospital director, regarding notes on the bulletin board.
£750