Thomas Bartholin - Institutiones Anatomicae - 1654

Full brown morocco binding with gold frames on the boards. Spine restored with 5 raised bands, ornaments, title, and author in gold. Red sprayed edges faded.

1 white leaf, [8], 488, [12], 1 white leaf

Expanded edition in both text and illustrations compared to the original of 1611. A masterful, imposing, and broad-spirited work on the human body and its functions. The work explores musculature, membranes, veins, organs, the female and male genitalia, and bodily fluids, also including a wide section dedicated to the nervous system. A concluding part contains Monsieur Jean Walaeus’s letters to Thomas Bartholin concerning the movement of blood and chyme within the body. The Bartholin family gave rise to an extraordinary dynasty of physicians, publishing prolifically and offering, for generations, an immense contribution to the world of medicine.

Thomas Bartholin, known in Latin as Thomas Bartholinus and in Italian as Tommaso Bartolino (Copenhagen, 20 October 1616 – Copenhagen, 4 December 1680), was a Danish anatomist famous for being the first to describe fully the human lymphatic system (1652).

Fine frontispiece with six small portraits of illustrious men of medicine in an architectural frame. Portrait of the author on the verso of the same; the said leaf is restored at the lower margin. Initials, finials, and decorative initial letters. With 6 plates, folded several times over themselves, and a large number of illustrations, of which 57 are full-page. Two ex libris affixed to the flyleaf. The fore-edge largely faded at the inner upper margin, which broadens along the second half of the volume. Overall a good-preservation copy with the plates still usable. Complete.