WILLIS, Thomas.

Dr. Willis's Practice of Physick, being the whole Works of that Renowned and Famous Physician ...

London, For T. Dring, C. Harper, and J. Leigh, 1684. Folio, pp. [xxxviii], 152; [ii], 158; [iv], 96; [viii], 160; [viii], 218; [viii], 96, 105-234, [viii], with 36 engraved plates on 35 sheets, three folding; waterstain of varying intensity in upper margins, occasionally descending into the text, old repair to one folding plate, marginal tear in another, a few rust spots and other minor blemishes; but on the whole a very good copy in contemporary panelled calf; rebacked and recornered; initials IB in gilt on upper cover. FIRST EDITION, the only complete edition of Willis's works in English, containing the first English edition of De anima brutorum, Oxford, 1672. The Pharmaceutice rationalis, Oxford, 1675, was the first of Willis's works to be translated into English, and was published in 1679 including the treatise on scurvy. This was followed in 1681 by The remaining medical works, containing the treatises listed as I-VII in the present edition in translations by the poet Samuel Pordage, and a poem On the authors medical-philosophical discourses. In 1683 Pordage's translation of De anima brutorum was published as Two discourses concerning the soul of brutes. The present collection is made up of a reprint of The remaining medical works, a new translation of the Pharmaceutice rationalis by Pordage and a re-issue of the original sheets (including the title-page) of The soul of brutes.Sir Geoffrey Keynes summarises Willis's contributions to medicine in an article in Medical History (1961, pp. 313-26): 'Willis is certainly, I think, one of the most important medical writers of the seventeenth century. He did not make any single forward step in science to compare with Harvey's demonstration of the circulation, but he covered a very wide field of observation in physiology, anatomy, and neurology, including mental disorders. He was distinguished even among the early fellows of the Royal Society. Everyone knows the implications of the "Circle of Willis," it is less well known that he first distinguished true diabetes mellitus, and showed that the polyuria was not due to any disease of the kidney. He even anticipated the recognition of hormones in the circulation by his suggestion that the phenomena of puberty were due to a ferment distributed through the body from the genitals.'Although the title-page calls for forty copperplates, the correct count is as here. The advertisement at the end for this book calls for thirty plates, and gives the price - thirty shillings.Garrison-Morton 1311, 3165, 4613, 4673, 4918, 4919; Krivatsy 13005 (imperfect); Parkinson & Lumb 2599; Wing W2854; not in the British Library.

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