LA MÉTHODE GRAPHIQUE DANS LES SCIENCES EXPÉRIMENTALES. [FIRST AND SECOND EDITIONS]: ET PARTICULIÈREMENT EN PHYSIOLOGIE ET EN MÉDECINE

Paris: G. Masson, 1878. First edition. 8vo., xix, 673 pp., errata, 348 illustrations from charts, graphs, and drawings. Publisher's red cloth, titled in black ink on the upper cover and spine. There is faint spotting on the fore edge, a slight smudge to cloth near the lower corner of the front cover, slight rubbing along the front hinge and slight creasing at the board tips, not affecting the text block. A very good and bright copy. [with] Marey, E.J. LA MÉTHODE GRAPHIQUE DANS LES SCIENCES EXPÉRIMENTALES.... Augumenté d'un supplément sur LE DÉVELOPEMENT DE LA MÉTHODE GRAPHIQUE PAR LA PHOTOGRAPHIE. Paris: G. Masson, 1885. Deuxième Tirage. 8vo., [iii], xix, 673 pp., errata, 383 illustrations; [supplement] vi, [i], 52 pp., 35 illustrations. Original printed wrappers which are lacking a portion from the front panel with the partial loss of a single letter "L" from the title, and a bit soiled; scattered foxing and minor wear. Very good. Marey pioneered the use of graphic recording systems and devices, many of his own manufacture, to record data that was not possible merely by observation. He applied his methodology to the respiratory, circulatory and musculature systems, the study of human and animal locomotion, etc., notating in detail his findings and the sources from which he built upon. He conceived "of the body as an animate machine run by a complex motor whose functions could be reduced to the newly discovered laws of thermodynamics - Marey chose to study the body's most manifest form of energy: movement." The implications of his work "changed how the working body was conceived and how it was represented in both the social and aesthetic domains. He provided a scientific basis for developing the endurance of the soldier, and for the creation of a national physical education program in France. His instruments were used to analyze worker's movements and even to rationalize a physiological basis for psychology." see: Braun, Marta, ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY PHOTOGRAPHY, p. 890 - 891. It was these graphic methods that lead Marey to his invention of the chronophotograph, the precursor of cinematography, which he enumerates and illustrates in his important supplement to the second edition.

Roosens and Salu 6827.