The first major work on the subject since Milne's Surgical Instruments in Greek and Roman Times (1907).

The author characterized himself  on the title page as "a Trader with the Indians and a Resident in their Country for Forty Years." Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

The small color mezzotint printed by the painter Jan Ladmiral included with this pamphlet on the arteries and veins of the human intestine was among the earliest applications of full color printing, and the first use of the three-color printing  process in a medical or scientific book. Between 1736 and 1741 Albinus issued six pamphlets, each containing a color mezzotint by Ladmiral, forming the first series of full-color, color-printed anatomical illustrations ever made. The other dissertations included De sede et causa coloris Aethiopum et caeterorum hominum (1737), a treatise on the anatomy and color of human skin; Icon durae matris in coava superficie visae (1738), on the anatomy of the brain; Icon durae matris in convexa superfice visae, ex capite (1738); Icon membranae vasculosae (1738), on the vascular membranes; and Effigies penis humani (1741), on the anatomy of the penis. These six images are  the only color prints produced by Jan Ladmiral, who had learned the process of color printing from the artist Jacob Christoph le Blon, the inventor of the process for printing color mezzotints using the three primary colors.

Black and white digital facsimile, unfortunately not including the color-printed image, from Google Books at this link.

This radical and progressive sex manual was the first book to specify methods of contraception, including the sponge, condoms, and withdrawal. It also took the position, radical at the time, that with respect to sexual desire both sexes may be considered equal. Digital facsimile of the London, 1828 edition from the London School of Economics and Political Science at this link. A very well edited modern edition, with a full discussion of the publishing history of the work is What is love? Richard Carlile's philosophy of sex by M. L. Bush (London: Verso, 1998). A preliminary version first appeared in Carlile's The Republican, 11, 545-69 (May 6, 1825).

Bleuland's catalogue of his museum of anatomical and pathological specimens. Digital facsimile from Universiteit Utrecht at this link.

Issued in 12 fascicules from 1826 to 1828. Consists of 3 parts concerning anatomy and physiology, comparative anatomy specimens and pathological specimens. Includes 37 plates printed in color; 35 plates in black & white. Digital facsimile from Universiteit Utrecht at this link.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

A collection of essays by various scholars. Editors also included M.E. van Opstall and F. Vos.

An amended and updated index of Diels' catalogue (No. 6767), and a list of items missed or overlooked in Diels, or located since.

In 1968 Bird founded and directed the first "telemedicine" system, which linked a medical station at Boston's Logan Airport with doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital, who supplied remote diagnosis, treatment and medical image transmission.

The first book on telemedicine, with contributions by 18 authors, including Kenneth T. Bird. In the final chapter the editors summarize telemedicine programs then operational in the United States. The book also includes an extensively annotated bibliography of significant literature, which at the time included only 17 papers. Bashshur was the lead author.

The first effort to present summaries of the evidence for earliest occupation in all the regions of Europe including Russia, edited by Roebroeks and van Kolfschoten.

The first comprehensive introduction to all 186 Linnaean dissertations, in the form of short essays (many illustrated) on each dissertation. Most of these dissertations, which were published in Latin, have remained relatively obscure until now. The essays describe the content of each dissertation, and place each dissertation its historical context. Topics of the dissertations include botany, zoology, pharmacology, and medicine.

An attempt to reconstruct the library of Avraham Portaleone (1542-1612) of Mantua, physician to the ducal house of Gonzaga, on the basis of two interesting inventories, including a Hebrew list of 1585 and an inventory associated with Portaleone's death in 1612, notarized and preserved in the Archivio Notarile at Mantua.

Translated into English by David J. Parent as Dictators in the Mirror of Medicine: Napoleon, Hitler Stalin (Bloomington, IL: Med-Ed Press, 1995).

Vol. 1: Am Beispiel der Wiener Klassik; Vol. 2: Am Beispiel der deutschen Romantik; Vol. 3: Chopin, Smetana, Tschaikowsky, Mahler. The three volumes were translated into English by Bruce Cooper Clarke, and published in Bloomington, Indiana by Med-Ed Press, 1995-97.

Includes advice on health, diet, etc. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Drysdale emphasized that sexual intercourse should be pleasurable for both sexes, but believed that the ever-present possibility of pregnancy prevented it from being so. He also believed that overpopulation itself was a major cause of poverty for which birth control was a solution. He also believed that fear of having more children encouraged men to turn to prostitutes, and was also a strong inhibitor of a women's willingness to express their sexuality. Drysdale also believed that immoderate amounts of sexual activity were dangerous, and he was horrified by variant sexuality, including masturbation. In spite of the limitations of Drysdale's ideas, Havelock Ellis was greatly influenced to enter the field of sex research by reading Drysdale's book.

Only six pages of Drysdale's book were devoted to contraception. He discussed five techniques, two of which, the sponge and the douche, he advised were to be used together. His douche solution, however, was simply tepid water, which he held would flush out the sperm from the vagina, after which the sponge could be removed. He also advocated that women use a safe period, which he said was from two to three days before menstruation to eight days after  Coitus interruptus, he wrote, was “physically injurious” because it might cause mental disorders and illness in the man and it also interfered with pleasure.The condom, in his mind, was unaesthetic, dulled enjoyment, and might even produce impotence. Digital facsimile from the National Library of Australia at this link.

Describes bibliographically and illustrates the approximately 60 different surviving fugitive sheets together with essays on "The visual culture of Renaissance anatomy," "Anatomical fugitive sheets: Printing, prints and the spread of anatomy in the sixteenth century", "The birth of an anatomical icon",  and "Knowe theyself: The uses and functions of anatomical images".There is also a useful bibliography of primary and secondary sources.

Translated into English by John Tedeschi and Anne C. Tedeschi as Books of the body: Anatomical ritual and Renaissance learning, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. 

The definitive archival history in 1460 pages. In 2016 a PDF of this entire book could be downloaded from the W.H.O. at this link.

Part 1: Surviving Hunterian specimens demonstrating those organs in plants and animals for the special purposes of the individual. Part 2: Hunterian specimens demonstrating the products of generation together with surviving Hunterian specimens from other collections.

Edited for publication by Worm's son, Willum Worm.  Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Very detailed descriptions of all the muscles of the human body, with illustrations drawn and engraved by Jan Wandelaar depicting the muscles of the hand, life-size with all the muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones. These were the first plates in which Wandelaar applied the 'architectonic' procedure of 'projective' transposition of the objects to paper with the aid of a pair of compasses and a ruler. See Punt, Albinus, p. 7. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

The famous illustration of Imperato's museum or "cabinet of curiosities" published in this work was the first pictorial representation of the natural history research collection formed by Renaissance humanist". The collection embraced an herbarium, shells, birds, sea creatures, fossils, clays, minerals and metallic ores, marbles and gems. It was maintained by Imperato's son Francesco, who assisted him in writing up his observations, and who may be seen in the engraving pointing out details of the specimens to two visitors as Ferrante looks on. Digital facsimile of the 1599 from the Getty Research Institute, Internet Archive, at this link. Expanded second edition, Venice, 1672 of which a digital facsimile is available from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Digital facsimile from the University of Bologna at this link.

A collective work edited by Impey and MacGregor.

A collective work edited by Arnold and Olsen.

Spectacular color images including many of original paintings and manuscripts.

Translated into English by Stanley Hochman as Great voyages of discovery: Circumnavigators and scientists, 1764-1843. (New York: Facts on File, 1983).

The natural history of Captain James Cook's second voyage in the Pacific; Forster and his son Georg were appointed naturalists to the voyage after Joseph Banks withdrew from the position. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Botany of the circumnavigation of Sir Francis Drake.  Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Dyson designed one of the first usable interference microscopes  This optical system achieved interference imaging without requiring polarizing elements in the beam path.

A spectacular book on eight medical and natural history museums: text by Gould, superbly reproduced dramatic photographs by Purcell. Chapter 1: "Dutch treat: Peter the Great and Frederik Ruysch".

Revised and expanded finely printed edition of a rare book catalogue originally issued by Diana Parikian in association with Bernard Quaritch Ltd.

As the title indicates, the Cospi collection incorporated the earlier museum of Ulisse Aldrovandi, and Legati's catalogue is sometimes regarded as forming a 14th or supplementary volume to Aldrovandi's encyclopedic Opera omnia (13 vols., 1599-1667). "When Maximilian Misson visited the Cospi collection in 1688 what struck him most were the 'hundred and eighty-seven volumes in folio, all written by Aldrovandus in his own hand, with more than two hundred bags full of loose papers' " (Grinke, From Wunderkammer to museum (2006) No. 25). Digital facsimile from the Getty Research Institute, Internet Archive, at this link.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

This was the second edition, with 7 additional plates, of the privately printed catalogue of the natural history collection or museum of the Nuremberg botanist Basilius Besler, author of Hortus Eystettensis (1613). The first edition, No. 11498, was undated but has been assigned the date of 1616 by most bibliographers. The engraved title shows Besler in his "cabinet" exibiting the collection to a visitor; this is also one of the few early catalogues published by the owner of a collection. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

First published in 1666.  Digital facsimile from the Biodiversity Heritage Library, Internet Archive at this link.

Description of the cabinet of Wittenberg apothecary Christian Nicolai by Christian Warlitz, professor of medicine at Wittenberg. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Of particular value for reprinting many early museum catalogues. The second edition issued in 1714 reissued the first volume together with a second and third volume.  Digital facsimile of the 1704 first edition from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digitall facsimile from the Bayerische StaatsBibliothek at this link.

Includes Ruysch's catalogue of the extent of his medical museum in 1691. Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

Catalogue of the museum of Christian V, King of Denmark by Jacobaeus, physician, traveller, and writer. Digital facsimile from Getty Research Institute, Internet Archive at this link.

The only published installment of the catalogue of William Hunter's magnificent collection of coins, a collection regarded as one of the finest in the world. Hunter began collecting coins around 1770, and by the time of his death had spent over £22,000 on this pursuit— an enormous sum of money by the standards of the day. After Hunter's death, by the terms of his will, the coin collection, together with Hunter's books, pictures and anatomical models, remained in the care of three trustees for thirty years, after which time they became the property of the University of Glasgow.

Nummorum veterum populorum et urbium was compiled by Charles Combe (1743-1817), a physician and coin dealer who became acquainted with Hunter in 1773, and greatly assisted Hunter in forming his collection. Combe was one of the three trustees appointed in Hunter's will to administer his collections, the other two being Dr. George Fordyce and Dr. David Pitcairne. Combe had originally intended to prepare a catalogue of the complete Hunterian coin collection, but was able to publish only this installment. The work is illustrated with 68 plates that Combe took care to make "more faithful to the original coins than the illustrations in previous numismatic works" (DNB). Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Authoritative illustrated chapters on aspects of Hunter's collecting, including anatomy, zoology, entomology, fossils, numismatics, paintings, drawings, printed books and manuscripts. A collective work edited by Hancock, Pearce and Campbell.

Includes a section on the development of tomography and computed tomography (CT). Translated into English by Peter F. Winter as Radiology in medical diagnostics: Evolution of X-ray applications 1895-1995 (Oxford: Blackwell Science, 1995).

The theory of punctuated equilibrium or punctuated equilibria in evolution. This theory argues that once species appeared in the the fossil record they became stable, showing little net evolutionary change for most of their geological history. This state they called stasis. When significant evolutionary change occurred, the theory states that it is generally restricted to rare and geologically rapid events of branching speciation called cladogenesis. Cladogenesis is the process by which a species splits into two distinct species, rather than one species gradually transforming into another. Eldredge and Gould argued that the degree of gradualism in evolution commonly attributed to Darwin is virtually nonexistent in the fossil record, and that stasis dominates the history of most fossil species. In 2016 the paper and Eldredge and Gould was available from blackwellpublishing.com at this link.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

"The following Catalogue is, to the best of our knowledge and belief, a true Catalogue of the Anatomical Prepartions left by the late Dr. William Hunter.--G. Fordyce, David Pitcairn, W. Combe."

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Parts 1 and 2 by Flower; part 3 by Sharpe. Digital facsimile of Part 1 from the Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link, of Part 2 at this link, and Part 3 at this link.

The edition also provides invaluable information regarding Hunter's life and work, and a discussion of the existing Hunterian manuscripts and the record of their survival or loss. As an account of the unique story of the partial survival and partial destruction of John Hunter's manuscripts I quote from the summary provided by the SurgiCat website of the Royal College of Surgeons as accessed in August 2016 at this link:

"The Destruction of the Hunterian Manuscripts:

John Hunter kept many manuscript notes of his dissections, cases, and research. Hunter employed a number of amanuenses so that fair copies of his rough manuscripts could be taken, the rough manuscripts often being destroyed after this had been done. Hunter published two major works on the teeth in 1771 and 1778, as well as many papers on a variety of topics. However there still remained a great deal of unpublished material after Hunter’s death in 1793. These manuscripts were kept at Hunter’s house in Castle Street under the care of William Clift. Over the next six years, William Clift copied many of the manuscripts for his own reference.

John Hunter wished his collection of specimens should be offered to the British Government. In 1799 the collections were offered to The Company of Surgeons, which became The Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1800. A museum was purpose built to incorporate these collections in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. In December 1799, Sir Everard Home ordered that all the Hunterian manuscripts should be transferred to his own house.

Sir Everard Home, a Hunterian Trustee and one of John Hunter’s executors, was entrusted by the Board of Trustees for the Hunterian Collections, to use the manuscripts to compile a catalogue of the specimens. However, this catalogue never appeared. In 1823, Sir Everard Home spoke to William Clift of a fire at his home resulting in the fire brigade being called, which was caused by his burning of John Hunter’s manuscripts in the fireplace.

The Hunterian Trustees began to worry about the catalogue being completed and elected a committee to consider the catalogue at their meeting in February 1824. The Board of Curators of the Museum requested on the 5th March 1824 that the Hunter manuscripts be transferred to the College as soon as possible. Sir Everard Home responded that John Hunter did not consider his manuscripts to be seen by the public due to their imperfect state and that they should instead be destroyed. Home claimed that he had spent the last 30 years using the papers for the benefit of the museum, but due to his own ill health could not continue this, and ended his executorship by destroying them.

The Board of Trustees were astonished and correspondence followed between the Trustees, the Board of Curators, and Sir Everard Home. This resulted in Sir Everard Home presenting the Board of Trustees with a sealed parcel containing some of John Hunter’s descriptions of specimens, on the 27th November 1824. Sir Everard Home claimed these were all the records of Morbid Anatomy of John Hunter. The Board of Curators reported that the records were incomplete and William Clift revealed that the records when he had looked after them between 1793 and 1799 had been much more numerous. Sir Everard Home did not respond to the questions asked of him about these records, but presented the Cases in Surgery manuscripts to the Board of Trustees at the meeting on 19th February 1825.

The reasons behind Sir Everard Home’s destruction of the Hunterian Manuscripts has been discussed on numerous occasions, with several theories being proposed. Sir Arthur Keith suggested for example that Home destroyed the manuscripts out of piety due to the heretical content of some the papers. This explanation has been considered limited due to minority of papers that might be considered of a heretical nature. The theory now more generally accepted to explain the destruction of the majority of the Hunterian manuscripts is that Home was using the contents of the manuscripts in his own publications.

Evidence used to back up this argument includes comparisons between some of John Hunter’s works and those of Sir Everard Home, which contain striking similarities; the extent of publications produced by Home between 1793 and 1823 including an incredible amount of original work for such a short time period; and the fact that Home destroyed the Hunterian manuscripts a few days after receiving the final proofs of his work Lectures on Comparative Anatomy.

Following the presentation by Home of the manuscripts of records in morbid anatomy and cases in surgery, William Clift began to transcribe them. These transcriptions were completed by 1825, and were added to the transcriptions of other Hunterian Manuscripts undertaken by William Clift before the originals were destroyed. Other Hunterian manuscripts have been added to the collections over the years from various sources.

[Source: Elizabeth Allen, JL Turk, Sir Reginald Murley (eds) The Case Books of John Hunter FRS, London: Royal Society of Medicine Services Limited, 1993.]"

First description of a clear distinction between what is now known as gray and white matter in the central nervous system. The work also includes the first attempt to illustrate the brain in a sagittal view. The nine dramatic woodcuts in this work are strikingly original and not derived from Vesalius, as were most of the anatomical works in this period. The second issue of the sheets dated 1586 include an engraved portrait of Piccolomini on its title page that is very different from the portrait on the title page of the first issue of 1585, as well as a change in the dedicatee from Jacopo Boncompagni, Duke of Sora, to Pope Sixtus V, who ascended to the papacy in 1585. Digital facsimile of the 1586 issue from the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek at this link.

An early discussion of peripheral nerve injuries, tumors, and inflammation of nerves, including issues of pain and healing. Swan was among the first of the 19th-century surgeons to argue that divided nerves that are surgically repaired heal  best. Also, this work probably includes the first animal experiments on nerve injuries. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Linnaeus’s physician’s reference on pharmacology. Linnaeus classified medicinal plants according to his botanical system and described the therapeutic value of the drugs derived from each plant. He was instrumental in introducing quassia (bitterwood), solanum (nightshade), dulcamara (bittersweet) and many other plant remedies into medicine. His work laid the foundation for the scientific study and development of materia medica, and remained a model for later authors on the subject.

The second and third volumes of this work, on animals and minerals respectively, were published together under the title Materies medica in 1763. Of this later title Soulsby notes: “This very rare work is founded on the Dissertations of 1750, Jonas Sidren, Respondens, & 1752, Johannes Lindhult, Resp. . . . Linnaeus was probably not concerned in its production.” 

Exeter Cathedral Library, established in the eleventh century, houses medical and scientific books from all periods. It includes the library of the Exeter physician Thomas Glass, which he left to the cathedral in the eighteenth century, as well as pre-1901 items from Exeter Medical Library.

The collection formed by John Hunter, to which was added the collection formed by Hans Sloane acquired from the British Museum in 1809, and material from other donors. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.