Astruc - Tumoribus & Ulceribus - 1766

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THE ANATOMY OF TUMORS: AN ENLIGHTENMENT PHYSICIAN CONFRONTS CANCER AND ULCERS
Important seventeenth-century treatise dedicated to the classification, diagnosis and treatment of tumors and ulcers.
Jean Astruc tackles inflammations, erysipelas, edema, scirrhus, glandular tumors, abscesses and ulcerative lesions.
The work testifies to the shift from traditional humoral medicine toward a more systematic clinical observation. Venetian Latin edition of 1766, published by Niccolò Pezzana and derived from Astruc's French work. Genuine specimen in a rustic contemporaneous boards binding, with brace and title handwritten on the back.

ABSTRACT
Tractatus de tumoribus & ulceribus is a wide synthesis of pathology and therapy of tumors according to mid-18th-century medicine. Astruc organizes the subject with a systematic aim, distinguishing the different forms of swelling according to origin, appearance, consistency, symptoms and prognosis. The work is structured in six books dedicated respectively to tumours of the phlegmonous kind, erysipelas, edema, scirrh, other categories of tumors, and finally ulcers. Of particular historical interest are the pages devoted to scirrhus and its possible cancerous evolution: we are naturally very distant from modern oncology, but the attempt to clinically distinguish different types of tumor constitutes a meaningful testimony of seventeenth/eighteenth-century medicine. The volume is completed by two medical epistles, dedicated respectively to the composition of remedies whose preparation was kept secret and to the nature and efficacy of new remedies proposed against venereal diseases. The 1766 Venetian edition is also cataloged by the Wellcome Collection as a Latin translation of Traité des tumeurs et des ulcères.

MARKET VALUE
Edition of particular interest especially for collectors of history of medicine, surgery, oncology and pathology of the eighteenth century. Considering the author, medical interest, originality of the binding and condition: realistic commercial value: €1000–1200.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION
Contemporary binding in rustic boards, with title historically handwritten on the back. Binding shows natural signs of time, light stains, abrasions and wear to corners and margins. Florentine lily within a vegetal-engraved border on the title page; ornate woodcut initials, head- and tail-pieces and typographic ornaments. Specimen with braces, with wide and irregular margins. Occasional fine foxing and marginal stains. Issue G is bound out of order and presents a small wood-borer work on the inner margin. The anomaly is a binding one and does not by itself imply a lack of text. In old books, with a centuries-long history, a few imperfections may be present, not always noted in the description. This listing includes AI Visualizations. The images form an integral part of the description. Pp. VIII; 234.

FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
Tractatus de Tumoribus & Ulceribus.
Venetiis, Typis & impensis Nicolai Pezzanae, 1766.
Jean Astruc.

CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
The work belongs to a fundamental phase in the history of medicine, in which the traditional classification of diseases is progressively supplemented by a more methodical observation of symptoms and clinical evolution. Astruc still starts from categories of Hippocratic and Galenic derivation, but seeks to organize tumors according to observable characteristics: localization, consistency, color, pain, temperature, progression and therapeutic possibilities. The index allows one to grasp the breadth of the work. The first book deals with phlegmon, abscesses, gangrene, carbuncle, parotids and buboes; the second with erysipelas, herpes, scabies and other affections; the third is dedicated to edema; the fourth to scirrhus, a historically important category in the genealogy of the cancer concept; the fifth collects tumors not reconducible to the previous categories; the sixth is dedicated to ulcers. Particularly interesting are the observations in which Astruc relates certain forms of scirrhus to the risk of cancerous degeneration and discusses when treatment may be ineffective or even dangerous. The complete text of the 1766 edition is preserved and digitized by the Wellcome Collection.

BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Jean Astruc (1684–1766) was one of the most important French physicians of the first half of the 18th century.
Physician, professor and prolific scientific author, he gained particular notoriety for studies on venereal diseases and female pathologies. The Wellcome Collection houses numerous of his manuscripts and medical texts, relating among other things to diseases of women, fevers, thoracic, ocular and venereal diseases. His work testifies to the encyclopedic ambition of Enlightenment medicine: to describe, classify and systematically organize diseases based on medical tradition, clinical experience and available scientific literature. He died in 1766, the same year as the publication of this Venetian edition.

PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
The work originally appeared in French as Traité des tumeurs et des ulcères and enjoyed European circulation that also produced the Latin translation. This edition was printed in Venice in 1766 by Niccolò Pezzana, belonging to one of the longest-running Venetian printing dynasties. In the same period Pezzana published other medical works by Astruc, including Tractatus de morbis mulierum, confirming Italian book market interest in contemporary French medicine. The presence of an approval from the Reformers of the Studium of Padua, dated June 1765 and visible in the copy, materially places the book within the Venetian system of censorship and authorization of scientific printing. The Wellcome Collection preserves a digitized copy of the Venetian edition of 1766 and explicitly identifies it as the Latin version of Astruc's work.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
Wellcome Collection, Jean Astruc, Tractatus de tumoribus & ulceribus, 1766; digitized copy and bibliographic description.
Wellcome Collection, Astruc, Jean, 1684–1766, collection of the author's works and manuscripts.
L'Acadèmia – Biblioteca, Astruc, Jean, Tractatus de tumoribus & ulceribus, Venetiis, Nicolai Pezzanae, 1766: VIII, 234 pp.
Gonnelli, bibliographic description: Venetiis, typis & impensis Nicolai Pezzanae, 1766; in-4°, mm 245 × 172; VIII, 234 [i.e. 240] pp., showing the bundle G bound in incorrect order.
The Online Books Page / HathiTrust, Jean Astruc – Tractatus de tumoribus & ulceribus, Nicolai Pezzanae, 1766.