Sue le jeune - Dictionnaire de chirurgie - 1771

SUE LE JEUNE, JEAN-JOSEPH. — PORTABLE DICTIONARY OF SURGERY (PARIS, VINCENT, 1771, WITH PLATES OF EXPANDABLE INSTRUMENTS).
Paris: Vincent, 1771.
8vo. Contemporary full calf, spine with raised bands ornate.
Very desirable 1771 edition published by the printer Vincent, rue Saint-Séverin, forming the third autonomous volume of the famous Dictionary of Health.

The author, Jean-Joseph Sue le Jeune, belonging to an illustrious Parisian medical dynasty and ordinary surgeon of the Hôtel-de-Ville, codifies here the surgical know-how of the Enlightenment. The work is addressed to both apprentice surgeons and the provincial notables and nuns who provide care to the indigent (“charitable persons of the Province, who wish to be useful to the poor”).

This dictionary is particularly valued by collectors for its off-text engraved plates offering a true visual typology of eighteenth‑century surgical equipment.

Copy preserved in its original eighteenth‑century binding in full brown marbled calf. Spine with raised bands and gilded compartments of bright, beautiful sheen, with the original title piece perfectly preserved. Minor wear at the head (slight leather loss at the top) and rounded corners. Binding solid. Interior well preserved on handmade (vergé) paper with a slight weakness at the hinge of the first guard/title leaf at the inner binding. The large plates of expandable instruments are in pristine condition and well printed.

Jean-Joseph Sue le Jeune was not only the most renowned anatomy professor at the École pratique de Paris: he was also the grandfather of Eugène Sue, the famous novelist of The Mysteries of Paris! The scientific rigor and attention to detail of the Sue family are evident in each of the notices of this medical work.