"ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT IN THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE": RARE ASSOCIATION FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH OF SEATS AND CAUSES OF DISEASES, 1769, BY "THE FOUNDER OF PATHOLOGICAL ANATOMY," FROM THE LIBRARY OF RENOWNED CARDIOLOGIST DR. MYRON PRINZMETAL
MORGAGNI, John Baptist [Giovanni Battista]. The Seats and Causes of Diseases Investigated by Anatomy… Containing A Great Variety of Dissections, with Remarks. London: A. Millar and T. Cadell… and Johnson and Payne, 1769. Three volumes. Large quarto, original gray paper boards rebacked and recornerd in sheep, brown morocco spine labels.
First edition in English, published the same decade as the original Latin edition—hailed as "one of the great books in our literature" (Osler)—a groundbreaking achievement by "the founder of pathological anatomy" (DSB). This rare association copy is from the library of pioneering 20th-century cardiologist Dr. Myron Prinzmetal, "one of the first cardiologists to actively explore the link between diet and heart disease," with his distinctive "Osler" bookplates in each volume, exceedingly rare in original boards.
"By this great work, one of the most important in the history of medicine, Giovanni Morgagni was the true founder of modern pathological anatomy" (Garrison & Morton 2276). First published in Latin in 1761 and translated into English for the first time for this impressive three-volume edition, Morgagni's De sedibus et causis morborum (The Seats and Causes of Diseases) "established a new era in medical research… There is hardly a phase of pathological anatomy observable with the naked eye that Morgagni did not cover" (Grolier 46). "He describes a number of previously unpublished cases… representing the work of an entire school of anatomists… Morgagni may thus be considered to be the founder of pathological anatomy" (DSB). "Morgagni was the first to make a complete and systematic correlation between the symptoms of a particular disease and the anatomical lesions found on post mortem examination" (Norman 1547). "By comparing the clinical symptoms with the post mortem findings Morgagni laid the foundations of pathological anatomy… His book includes a number of brilliant descriptions of new diseases" (PMM 206).
"One of the most fundamentally important works in the history of medicine" (Heirs of Hippocrates 792), it remains "one of the great books in our literature" (Osler 1178). Translated from the Latin by Benjamin Alexander. Blake, 312. Garrison & Morton 2276. Grolier 100 Books Famous in Medicine 46. Norman 1547. Osler 1180. PMM 206. ESTC T98739. See Waller 6669. From the library of renowned cardiologist Dr. Myron Prinzmetal, "one of the first cardiologists to actively explore the link between diet and heart disease." Among his discoveries was a distinct form of angina—known as Prinzmetal angina. During WWII, he worked with Dr. Eleanor Gerlach Miles in studies of shock, and became "the first to clearly demonstrate the role of infection in shock. In 1956 he was a co-developer of a motion picture process that enabled the simultaneous photographing of a human heart through a fluoroscope and a separate picture of an electrocardiograph from the same heart with the two images then being projected onto a single screen" (Los Angeles Times). "Prinzmetal was also an avid collector of the history of medicine." His famous library contained rare volumes of works Copernicus and William Harvey, as well as Shakespeare folios. This copy features his distinctive bookplate in each volume, displaying "a somber black-ink sketch of Osler. Osler is seated at his desk looking down at his notes or a book. Behind him are shelves of books and a skull positioned at the top right-hand comer" (Osler Library Newsletter). With presentation bookplates of R.A. Bickersteth to Liverpool Medical Institution; small library shelf labels. Volume III with small inkstamp to rear pastedown.
Text fresh with only lightest foxing mainly to preliminaries, scant marginal dampstaining only to title page of Volume III. Original paper boards with expected minor wear.