Laurent Heister - Institutions de Chirurgie [40 planches dépliantes] - 1771

DESCRIPTION: I present to you at auction a wonderful illustrated edition with 40 fold-out plates of 'Institutions de Chirurgie,' a magnificent and dazzling work of European surgery from the 18th century, written by the German surgeon Lorenz Heister (1683 - 1758), considered the father of scientific surgery in Germany.

Before Heister, surgery was craft, intuition, inherited routine. After Heister, it is method, anatomy, reason.

This book was the go-to handbook for entire generations of European surgeons. In hospitals, military campaigns, and universities. Surgery was not studied without Heister. It's that simple.

Opening this book is not just turning pages: it is crossing a threshold.

The 40 fold-out pages are not shown all at once: they are revealed. One by one, as if the book itself hesitated before showing you how far human beings have gone to survive.

Instruments of unsettling shapes, operating tables, patients screaming supported by determined assistants while the surgeon, saw or scalpel in hand, amputates arms, legs, female breasts, tumors. Tense gestures, fixed gazes, concentration, and the skilled hands of the surgeon. Everything happens before relief, before silence, before modern medicine. Here, there is no anesthesia or chemical comfort: only speed, decisiveness, and knowledge.

Each scene is a still image capturing the most critical moment. The surgeon acts surrounded by assistants; the patient resists; time is pressing. The book does not explain it: it shows it. And in doing so, it forces the reader to confront an uncomfortable and fascinating truth: science was born at the edge of pain and courage.

There are operations that today seem unthinkable, approached with a chilling technical coldness that is shocking. Interventions that would now save lives in silent operating rooms, but which at the time were performed openly, with steady hands and minimal margin for error.

Unfolding a sheet is feeling how the book widens and the past draws near. It’s not morbid curiosity: it’s historical confrontation. It’s not spectacle: it’s testimony.

This is not a comfortable book: it is a brave book. And those who complete it do not come out the same: they understand better what it took to get here.

Having this volume is to possess the foundation on which modern medicine was built.

In a few years, you won't ask yourself, 'Why did I buy it?'.
You might be wondering, 'How did I almost let it pass?'

Heister's surgery. Don't let it slip away.

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Place and Year of Publication: Paris, 1771

SIZE AND PAGINATION: Dimensions: 4º, 2 volumes, 26 x 20 cm. Pagination: Volume 1: 627 pages + [5 pages]; Volume 2: 639 pages + [37 pages]. 40 fold-out plates. Weight: 3.5 kg. COMPLETE WORK.

CONDITION: Beautiful set of 2 volumes bound in full marbled leather, in good condition with some scuffs, as shown in the photos. The spine has five raised bands, lavishly decorated with gold motifs inspired by plant designs, and double maroon leather labels with the title and volume number in gold characters. There are moth holes at the base of the spine. The edges are stained red.

The interior is in good overall condition, as shown in the photos. Some sporadic moth damage, essentially marginal, as shown in the photos. Illustrated specimen with 40 beautiful engraved, fold-out plates. GOOD SPECIMEN.

Heister's surgery. Don't let it slip away.

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