GLISSON, Francis.

Anatomia hepatis, Cui Praemittuntur Quædam ad rem Anatomicam Universè Spectantia.

London: Typeset by Du-Gardianis for Octaviani Pullein, 1654. FIRST EDITION Half title page with small graphic in lower right corner + TP + Dedication page + [i]-[iv] = Lectori Benevolo + [v]-[xlii] = Totius Operis Syllabus + 1-458 + [459]-[471] = Index, Octavo. Contains one (of two) folding engraved plates, engraved text illustrations and text woodcuts. This is the first English book dedicated to a single organ, the liver, and it also presents a complete description and analysis of the digestive system. Glisson based this work on the original research that he done during the previous decade. Glisson determined that blood passes from the portal vein to the vena cave. He also proved tha the lymph flows not to the liver, as was then generally thought, but from it, passing into the recently discovered common receptacle. This capsule, which Glisson was the first to accurately describe (and so named for him), is "an envelope of fibrous tissue that encloses the protal vein and hepatic artery (the two vessels carrying blood to the liver) and becomes contnuous with the fibrous scaffolding of the whole organ" (Lilly). He also described the sphincter of the bile duct in this work. "Educated at Cambridge, where he later served as Regius Professor of Physic, Glisson was part of the extraordinary ferment in medicine and the life sciences that occured in the two English universities in the earlier seventeenth century. Like his influential colleague and friend, William Harvey, Glisson epitomized the English style of biological research: he was theoretically conservative and non-dogmatic; and at the same time he was committed to a rigorous program of experimentation, precise observation, and accurate description. His principal publications, especially the Anatomia hepatis, join an experimental exactitude and direct observation of the particular with a felt concern to preserve basic Aristotelian and Galenic traditions of natural philosophy. . . . Glisson's classic work on the liver . . . was based on dissections that Glisson had done over a decade earlier. It was the first work to recast fundamentally the physiology of the abdominal organs, to delineate the structure and function of the liver, and to identify and describe the fibrous tissue encasing the liver (Glisson's capsule). It also introduced Glisson's important concept of 'irritability,' in which he argued that irritation was the organism's way of recognizing substances to be expelled. The property of irritability was thus basic to the health of the organism" (Grolier Club, 100 Books Famous in Medicine, 29). Contemporary calf, beautifully rebacked in period style with four raised bands and gilt lettering on the spine. Title page with tiny, contemporary, owner's ("W. Earnshaw") ink inscription below title page device. Very lightly dampstained on the fore edge of several pages. Lacks folding plate 1. Overall, a very nice copy. PHOTOS AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST.

• USD 6,000.00 > other currencies
• ordernr.: 129

• bookseller: Athena Rare Books (USA)