The first book on contact lenses, recording attempts over the previous hundred years to fit a lens in direct contact with the eye. Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

English translation St. Louis: C.V. Mosby, 1961.

Hogan and Alvarado's work was the first book on histology of the eye to include electron microscopy. It also reproduced spectacular three-dimensional representations of ocular ultrastructures by Joan Esperson Weddell.

The story of Treves's patient, Joseph Carey Merrick (1862-1890), incorrected identified by Treves in these reminiscences as "John Merrick." The story was retold in The elephant man, Bernard Pomerance's 1977 play about Joseph Merrick's life, as well as David Lynch's 1980 film The Elephant man in which Treves was portrayed by Anthony Hopkins. 

"The exact cause of Merrick's deformities is unclear. The dominant theory throughout much of the 20th century was that Merrick suffered from neurofibromatosis type I. In 1986, a new theory emerged that he had Proteus syndrome. In 2001, it was proposed that Merrick had suffered from a combination of neurofibromatosis type I and Proteus syndrome. DNA tests conducted on his hair and bones have proven inconclusive," Wikipedia article on Joseph Merrick, accessed 7-28-2016.)

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

To authenticate the remains of Johann Sebastian Bach, Wilhelm His senior performed one of the earliest examples of scientific facial reconstructions, reconstructing the soft tissues onto a plaster cast of the skull using facial tissue measurements recorded from a number of cadavers. He employed a sculptor to produce the three-dimensional facial reconstruction. Tim Valentine & Josh P Davis, Forensic facial identification: Theory and practice of identification (2015) 100.

An edition and translation of Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, Pal. lat. 187, a late seventh or early eighth century codex, which represents the earliest surviving manuscript of the text. Not written by Galen of Pergamon, the Alphabet of Galen was a handbook of ancient Greek pharmacy, describing 300 natural products (or "simples"), arranged in alphabetical order, transmitted in Latin to the Middle Ages under Galen's name. 

The Kitāb al-Musta'īnī by Ibn Biklarish, written in the Moorish Spain province of al-Andalus at the end of the 11th century, includes the first tables of simple medicines written in the region, "concentrating on facing pages for each medicinal substance, all the information transmitted by the treatises on synonyms, substitutes and materia medica. To the practical advantage of rapid consultation—the reader can look up the names of the simple drugs alphabetically—is added the great diversity of the material presented, particularly where the substances of mineral and animal origin are concerned. The Tables, moreover, are preceded by an Introduction in four chapters containing the theories of simple and compound medicines" (Joëlle Ricordel, "The manuscript transmission of the Kitāb al-Musta'īnī...." p. 27 of this edition).

Vol. 1: Primitive and Ancient Medicine (1991/1995), Vol. 2: Greek Medicine (1996), Vol. 3: Roman Medicine (1998), Vol. 4: Byzantine and Islamic Medicine (2001), Vol. 5: Medieval Medicine (2003), Vol. 6: Renaissance Medicine (2007).

Vol. 1 contains discussion of Egyptian, Chinese,  Hindu, Mesopotamian, and well as primitive and naturalistic medicine.

Digital facsimile of the 1863 edition from the Internet Archive at this link. Alcott expanded the work for the edition of 1869. Edited, with an extensive introduction by Bessie Z. Jones (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960).

Digital facsimile available at this link.

Spectacular collection of color photographs of wax models in the Museo la Specola, Florence. Text in English, French and German.

Digital version available at this link.

An encyclopedic work in 2153 pages; edited by Kiple and Ornelas.

Probably the first study of DNA isolated from ancient specimens, or ancient DNA (aDNA). By Higuchi, Barbara Bowman, and Mary Freiberger from the Department of Biochemistry, University of California, Berkeley and Ryder and Allan C. Wilson of the Research Department, San Diego Zoo.

Franklin was a prime mover in establishing the Pennsylvania Hospital, the first permanent hospital built in the future United States. This publication included the text of most of the founding documents of the hospital, a donation form for contributions, and a subscriber list.

Written in Franklin's absence, this continuation was printed in the same style and format as Franklin's 1761 work. Rhoads was an American architect who served as the 59th mayor of Philadelphia.

Digital facsimile from the National Library of Medicine at this link; from the Internet Archive at this link. Chapter XX is "Evolution of Computerized Bibliographies."

"There have been many descriptions of the palmar fascia by anatomists and in papers dealing with the surgical treatment of Dupuytren's contracture, but what seems to be lacking is an overall view of the problem, based on an anatomical study with a strong surgical viewpoint, which reproduces all the known observations and the explains the rleationships of the various structures to each other" (first paragraph of the Preface by the author.).   Appendix I, pp. 107-224, includes the text, in English translation where necessary, of previous classics on Dupuytren's contracture, beginning in the 18th century. There is also a comprehensive historical bibliography.`

One of the first books wholly devoted to endangered wild animals. Hornaday revolutionized museum exhibits by displaying wildlife in their natural settings, and is credited with discovering the American crocodile, saving the American bison and the Alaskan fur seal from extinction. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Part 1: Fossil mammalia by Richard Owen; Part 2: Mammalia by George Waterhouse; Part 3: Birds by John Gould; Part 4: Fish by Leonard Jenyns; Part 5: Reptiles by Thomas Bell. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Darwin’s first published book, now universally known as The Voyage of the Beagle, is the most often read and the most often printed of all his works, after On the origin of species. Its relation to the background of Darwin's evolutionary ideas has often been stressed.

The traditionally identified first issue forms the third volume of The Narrative of the Voyages of H. M. Ships Adventure and Beagle, edited by Captain Robert Fitzroy and published, in three volumes and an appendix to Volume II, in 1839 in London by Henry Colburn. In its first separate issue, also in 1839, it was called Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History. Whether the separate version was issued simultaneously with the set, or slightly later is unknown, as both were advertised in the same set of advertisements in August 1839. The text and maps of the separate version are identifical to the set except that pp. i-iv of the preliminaries are cancels and [v-vi], the original volume title, is discarded.

Though Darwin tended to discard or disperse the manuscripts of his later works after they were published, in some cases giving sheets to his children for use as scrap paper, he saved the  original autograph manuscript for this work, and it is preserved at Down House. The manuscript was reproduced in facsimile by Genesis Publications, London, 1979.

"In 1880, Wallace published the book Island Life as a sequel to The Geographical Distribution of Animals. It surveyed the distribution of both animal and plant species on islands. Wallace classified islands into three different types. Oceanic islands, such as the Galapagos and Hawaiian Islands (then known as the Sandwich Islands) formed in mid-ocean and never part of any large continent. Such islands were characterised by a complete lack of terrestrial mammals and amphibians, and their inhabitants (with the exceptions of migratory birds and species introduced by human activity) were typically the result of accidental colonisation and subsequent evolution. He divided continental islands into two separate classes depending on whether they had recently been part of a continent (like Britain) or much less recently (like Madagascar) and discussed how that difference affected the flora and fauna. He talked about how isolation affected evolution and how that could result in the preservation of classes of animals, such as the lemurs of Madagascar that were remnants of once widespread continental faunas. He extensively discussed how changes of climate, particularly periods of increased glaciation, may have affected the distribution of flora and fauna on some islands, and the first portion of the book discusses possible causes of these great ice ages. Island Life was considered a very important work at the time of its publication. It was discussed extensively in scientific circles both in published reviews and in private correspondence^{[126]" (Wikipedia article on Alfred Russel Wallace, accessed 02-2017).}

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

In this book Belt first described "the mutualistic relationship of certain Acacias and the ant we now know as Pseudomyrmex spinicola. These are a species of red myrmecophyte-inhabiting neotropical ants which are found only in Nicaragua and Costa Rica. They live in the thorns of a tropical tree, Acacia collinsii, feeding on nectaries along with the protein and lipid-rich pods produced by the plant for the ants and now known as Belsian bodies (or Beltian bodies) in honor of Belt" (Wikipedia article on Thomas Belt, accessed 07-31-2016).

Digital facsimile from the Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

The first important botanical work by a supporter of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. Hooker, a botanist and plant geographer, had been a close friend of Darwin for many years, and was aware of Darwin’s gradual progression toward a belief in the mutability of species, yet he did not begin fully to support Darwin’s views until shortly after the publication of the Origin of Species (1859). In his introduction to Flora Tasmaniae, the third volume of his massive Botany of the Antarctic Voyage of H. M. Discovery Ships ‘Erebus’ and ‘Terror’, Hooker publicly acknowledged his acceptance of Darwinian theory, which had come about “solely and entirely from an independent study of the plants themselves” (letter to W. H. Harvey, c. 1860). (This is a kind of offprint of a portion of No. 7448; it is sometimes viewed as a separate work.) 

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Part 1: Flora of Lord Auckland and Campbell's Islands (1843-45); Part 2: Flora of Fuegia, the Falklands, Karguellen's land, etc. (1845-47); Part 3: Flora of New Zealand. 2 vols. (1851-53); Part 4: Flora of Tasmania. 2 vols. (1853-59). Digital facsimiles at the Internet Archive at this link. (See also No. 7446).

Huxley served as assistant surgeon and naturalist aboard the Rattlesnake (1845-50) which made cruises from Australia to Louisiade Archipelago, New Guinea and Cape York. His diary is illustrated with his own drawings.

Presents virtually all of Huxley's scientific papers arranged in chronological order, as well as reports of his Royal Institution Friday Evening Discourses. The final supplemental volume contains the remainder of Huxley’s survey memoir on fossil fishes, along with three papers not collected elsewhere.

Macgillivray was naturalist to the expedition. Thomas Huxley served as assistant surgeon on this voyage; Huxley's diary of the voyage was first published posthumously in 1935. See No. 7449. Digital facsimile of MacGillivray's work from the Internet Archive at this link.

In 1799 Humboldt and Bonpland embarked on a six-year tour of research through South America and Mexico, a trip which would afterwards be called, justifiably, "the scientific discovery of America."  The two amassed exhaustive data in a wide array of fields from meteorology to ethnography, and gathered 60,000 plant specimens, 6,300 of which were previously unknown in Europe. Their American travel journals— issued under the general title Voyage aux régions équinoxiales du nouveau continent, fait en 1799, 1800, 1801, 1802, 1803 et 1804— were published in thirty-four volumes between 1807 and 1834. Digital facsimiles are available from the Internet Archive and Bnf Gallica. 

Doherty and Zinkernagel discovered how a class of white blood cells known as T cells kill virus-infected cells in the body, and so present the spread of viruses. 

In 1998 Zinkernagel and Doherty were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the specificity of the cell mediated immune defence." 

In 1991 Neher and Sakmann were awarded the 1991 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for "their discoveries concerning the function of single ion channels in cells." They were also awarded the prize for the invention of the patch clamp technique, a laboratory technique in electrophysiology that allows the study of single or multiple ion channels in cells, improving understanding of the involvement of channels in fundamental cell processes such as action potentials and nerve activity. The technique allowed investigation of the behavior of single protein molecules.

In 1995 Nüsslein-Volhard and Wieschaus shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Edward B. Lewis "for their discoveries concerning the genetic control of early embryonic development."

Discovery of the Drosophila Bithorax complex and elucidation of its function. Lewis founded the field of developmental genetics and laid the groundwork for current understanding of the universal, evolutionarily conserved strategies controlling animal development.

In 1995 Lewis shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard and Eric E. Wieschaus "for their discoveries concerning the genetic control of early embryonic development."

Cloning of the lamb Dolly, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell. Her birth established that the nuclei of at least some adult cells can be used to produce sheep or other animals that are genetically identical to the donor, when transferred into eggs from which the genetic material has been removed. Wilmut led the team that created Dolly but credits his colleague Keith Campbell with "66 percent" of the invention that made Dolly's birth possible. Co-authored by A. E. Schnieke, J. McWhire, and A. J. Kind.

The largest and most attractive book by Linnaeus, describing and illustrating plants in the garden and herbarium of George Clifford, governor of the Dutch East India Company, at Clifford's summer estate, Harlecamp. The book has been called the "first scholarly classification of an English garden." Engravings after botanical artist Georg Dionysius Ehret. Digital facsimile from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

An outstanding illustrated synthesis of the topics as they stood in 1967, including Chapter 2: "Notions of the origins of life in the past," summarizing prior theories. Appendix 1 publishes the English translation of Oparin's Proiskhozhedenie Zhizni (No. 7384) followed by Bernal's commentary, as well as Haldane's "The origin of life (No. 7467), followed by Bernal's commentary. 

Haldane suggested that organic molecules could have been synthesized in an early atmosphere of carbon dioxide.

Muller was one of the earliest proponents of a genetics-first theory for the origin of life. 

Urey coined the term cosmochemistry. He speculated that the early terrestrial atmosphere was probably composed of ammonia, methane, and hydrogen. One of his graduate students, Stanley Miller, showed in the Miller–Urey experiment  (No. 7383) that, if such a mixture is exposed to electric sparks and to water, it can interact to produce amino acids. 

Listing 10,500 items, the library of the Pennsylvania Hospital, founded in 1763, was undoubtedly the largest hospital library in the United States in 1857, and possibly the largest medical library in America. The first catalogue of the library was published in 1790, with supplements or new catalogues in 1793, 1806, 1829, and 1838. What was remarkable about the 1857 catalogue was its complex arrangement by medical specialty laid out in an 18-page Table of Contents set in fairly small type. This organizational scheme indicates much about the organization of medical knowledge at the time. The author, identified in this bibliography as "librarian" to prevent confusion with the biochemist of the same name, was a physician as well as a librarian. Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

Swammerdam's extensive collection of microscopical observations on insects was written in Dutch, and edited for publication 57 years after Swammerdam's death, with an extensive life of the author, by Herman Boerhaave. By the end of 1679 Swammerdam completed his manuscript, and the illustrations were virtually finished; two plates had been engraved, and the translation from Dutch to Latin was underway. However, Swammerdam’s health took a turn for the worse when his malaria returned. At Swammerdam's death in 1680 the manuscript passed to his friend Melchisédec Thévenot, with a request that the work be published. Unfortunately Thévenot could not meet the request of his dying friend. On Thévenot's death his papers were sold and the manuscript was bought by the King's painter, Joubert; on Joubert's death the manuscript was sold once again. In 1727 Boerhaave acquired the manuscript, but did not complete the editorial process and see the work into print until ten years later. The 2-volume folio work, published in 2-columns, includes a parallel Latin translation by Hieronymus David Gaubius. English translation, with title mistranslated as "Book of Nature" London, 1758. Digital facsimile of the first edition from Google Books at this link.

Divided into six parts, as follows:

Book I: Delle alterazioni di prima formazione (on teratology)

Book II: Delle ipertrofie

Book III: Delle atrofie

Book IV: Dell’infiammazione e della mortificazione

Book V: Dei tumori da tessuto morboso

Book VI: Dell degenerazione

The work appeared in fascicules between 1873 and 1892, with Book VI issued first and the remaining books following in numerical order. The illustrations were printed by lithography and chromolithography.

Steno's collected works, presented in the original Latin with an introduction in English. Digital facsimile from biusante.parisdescartes.fr at this link.

Steno's collected works translated from Latin into Italian. Reproduces Steno's original engraved illustrations, plus others from the time (some in color).

Chapter 1: General considerations: behaviour of the ear. Chapter 10: Physiological and psychological effects of noise.

Large folio, with 94 hand-colored lithographed plates by Archibald Henning (1805-64).

This oversized compendium of maps, graphs, statistical tables, and essays was the first comprehensive thematic atlas produced by any nation.  It was hailed both at home and abroad for its innovative use of graphic elements to distill and display complex data, including medical and population statistics and epidemiology. When he conceived and supervised production and publication of this work Walker was Chief of the U. S. Bureau of Statistics and superintendent of the 1870 census. The 60 large maps, most of which were printed in color, were chromolithographed in New York by Julius Bien, who produced the plates for the first American full-size reissue of portions of Audubon's Birds of America (1858-60). Kinnahan, "Charting Progress: Francis Amasa Walker's Statistical Atlas of the United States and Narratives of Western Expansion," American Quarterly 60 (2008) 399-423. Digital facsimile from the Library of Congress at this link.

This work contained one of the earliest applications of spatial analysis in epidemiology—an early thematic map by geographer and cartographer Charles Picquet, in which the 48 districts of Paris were represented by gray-scale gradient according to the percentage of deaths from cholera per 1000 inhabitants. Digital facsimile from BnF Gallica at this link.

This privately printed pamphlet contained a color statistical graphic entitled "Diagram of the causes of mortality in the Army of the East" which showed that epidemic disease, which was responsible for more British deaths in the course of the Crimean War than battlefield wounds, could be controlled by a variety of factors including nutrition, ventilation, and shelter. The graphic, which Nightingale used as a way to explain complex statistics simply, clearly, and persuasively, became known as Nightingale's "Rose Diagram." In January 1859 Nightingale conventionally published and distributed a 16-page pamphlet entitled  A Contribution to the the Sanitary History of the British Army during the late war with Russia. This also contained a copy of the Rose Diagram. The statistical tables used by Nightingale were prepared by William Farr from Andrew Smith's tables and other official documents. Digital facsimile of the 1859 edition from Harvard' Library at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Biodiversity Heritage Library, Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile of the first American edition (1878) from the Biodiversity Heritage Library, Internet Archive, at this link.

With 4 folio volumes this is probably the most elaborate catalogue of a private natural history museum, wunderkammer, or cabinet of curiosities ever published. The text is printed in Latin and Dutch. The work includes 446 copperplates, many double-page, and entirely hand-colored in some copies. Digital facsimiles of colored and uncolored copies from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

Mascagni's anatomy for artists and sculptors, edited for posthumous publication by Mascagni's literary execultor Francesco Antonmarchi. 15 hand-colored engraved plates after drawings by Antonio Serantoni (1780j-1837), an artist that Mascagni trained and worked with for many years.

Four large mezzotint plates issued with an accompanying text.

Contains a description of the eponymous "Duverney fracture" and the first full description of osteoporosis. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Includes eight spectacular plates printed in color by Gautier d'Agoty with text by Duvereny. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Includes 18 full-page color-printed mezzotints, 12 of the plates designed to fit together in threes to make four life-size human figures. Gautier credited Mertrud, the King's Surgeon with some of the anatomical work in this volume.

"Gautier's pictures seem to us to be in the tradition of the early gravida illustrations and the figures of Berengario and Charles Estienne—often attracting attention through sexual emphasis; dissected parts were placed within a living body usually possessing a lively face, whose expression is sometimes quizzical, sometimes erotically inviting, sometimes serene, always with a romantic and elegant hair-style. In one of Gautier's plates there are two naked women, one standing with emphatic breasts and issected pregnant uterus, the other sitting at her feet with open thighs so disposed as to exhibit her external genitalia. Such erotic figures may have also played a useful role in the sex education of physicians and others; they may be contrasted in their romantic extravagance of feeling with the matter-of-fact illustration in William Smellie's work (1754) an illustration that was often torn out by nineteenth century bowlderizers. (Most previous illustrations of this area, such as those of Leonardo or Vesalius, were remarkably inaccurate). The Gautier figures could, within the confines of anatomy, be quite tender, as in the fine plate in Anatomie générale...of a new born child, asleep but dissected, lying close to the recently-delivered mother, whose uterus has been opened for display" (Roberts & Tomlinson, The fabric of the hody [1992] 524-25).

Digital facsimile from e-rara.ch at this link.

Auvert was professor in Moscow. This folio atlas includes 120 folio plates of pathology subjects, drawn by Schtschegoleff in Moscow. The text is in Latin throughout. The drawings were engraved in Paris by Oudet, printed in color and retouched by hand, with explanatory text in Latin for each plate. The work was edited for production and publication in Paris by August AmbroiseTardieu, the leading forensic medicine specialist, who was also an artist like his father, the cartographer and engraver Ambroise Tardieu 1788-1841). The work was published in 24 parts beginning in 1848, according to the dates on the title pages of the fascicules. The complete work was issued in 1851. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile of Part II, Morbid Anatomy, from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.