Disquisitio Anatomica de formato foetu de NEEDHAM, Walter - 1667

London: William Godbid für Ralph Needham, 1667. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. 1st Edition. Hardcover. 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" tall. 8vo (159x95mm). [22], 205, [18 index] pp., 7 engraved plates, one folding. Contemporary full leather (some wear and pumping), red edges, brown label to spine (partly gone). Title page with stamp, some browning and foxing to text, some dampstaining to lower margins of first 20 pages. ---- Wellcome IV, 218 ; Norman 1579 ; Garrison-Morton 467.2 ; NLM/Krivatsy 8283 - FIRST EDITION OF THIS FOUNDING WORK ON DEVELOPMENTAL CHEMICAL EMBRYOLOGY. Having obtained his BA from Trinity College Cambridge, and been admitted a fellow of Queens, Needham went to Oxford in 1662, where he attended anatomy lectures and became closely involved with the work of Thomas Willis, Robert Boyle, Thomas Millington and Richard Lower. He subsequently returned to Queens, taking the degree of doctor of physic in 1664. His Disquisitio, the 'first book to report chemical experiments on the developing mammalian embryo, and the first to give practical instructions on dissection of embryos' (Garrison-Morton), was dedicated to Boyle and owed much to his period at Oxford. "Needham's treatise contained the first practical instructions for embryo dissection, and was the first to report chemical experiments on the developing mammalian embryo. Needham was particularly interested in fetal nutrition, opposing the notion that the fetus feeds on amniotic fluid by mouth and defending the Harveian view that nourishment passes to the fetus via the umbilical vessels. He analyzed the chemical composition of the embryonic liquids, and gave the first truly comparative account of the secondary apparatus of generation" (Norman).