DESCARTES, René (1596-1650). L'Homme et la Formation du Foetus. Paris: Charles Angot, 1677.

4to (245 x 185mm). Illustrated with numerous anatomical text woodcuts and other diagrams. (Occasional marginal spotting, some minor wormholes or short wormtracks mostly in lower margins, occasionally touching letters, some repaired). Contemporary French calf gilt (some old repairs to joints and edges, joints now starting near ends, but cords sound). Provenance: Herbert McLean Evans (bookplate).

Second edition in French. Dedicated to Colbert, and the second to contain his De homine figuris, his attempt to explain reproductive generation in mechanistic physiological terms. Another issue by Girard was published the same year. The work represents "the first attempt to cover the whole field of 'animal physiology'" (Garrison & Morton). The first edition appeared in Latin in 1662, a translation from the original French manuscript; the first French edition appeared in 1664, and included the first printing of the treatise De la formation du foetus, which appears here on pp. 99-154. The woodcuts are based on drawings by Descartes in the manuscript.

Garrison & Morton 574; Tchemerzine 4, 309; this edition not in Wellcome.

Selections from Antiquariat Botanicum, Dr. Eugene Vigil

DESCARTES, René (1596-1650). L'Homme et la Formation du Foetus. Paris: Charles Angot, 1677.

DESCARTES, René (1596-1650). L'Homme et la Formation du Foetus. Paris: Charles Angot, 1677.