Observationum medicarum. Libri tres. Cum aeneis figuris de TULP, Nicolaas - 1641

Amsterdam: L. Elzevier, 1641. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. 1st Edition. Hardcover. 8vo (152 x 97 mm). [16], 279 [1] pp., title with woodcut device, 14 full-page engraved illustrations numbered I-XIIII and a small unnumbered text engraving; woodcut initials and tailpieces. Signatures: *8 A-R8 S4, including blank leaf *8. Contemporary vellum with yapp edges, spine with faint hand-lettering, original endpapers (vellum spotted and little dust-soiled). Text clean and crisp throughout with only little even age-toning; minor pale brown staining to upper blank margin of first 3 gatherings; upper blank margin of title with cut-out, short clean tears to fore-margin of leaves N2-4; light dust soiling to upper blank margin of final few pages. Provenance: Haskell F. Norman (bookplate to front pastedown); contemporary ink iscriptions on first flyleaf, one dated 1685. A very good copy in untouched binding. ----

FIRST EDITION. Nicolaes Tulp was a Dutch surgeon and Mayor of Amsterdam. "[He -] best known today as the subject of Rembrandt's painting 'The anatomy lesson of Dr. Tulp' - made numerous contributions to anatomy and pathology in this work including his description of the ileocecal valve ('Tulp's valve'), whose discovery he shared with Gaspard Bauhin. The illustrations include a depiction of an 'orang-outang,' actually a liberally enhanced portrait of a young chimpanzee. Tulp was the first European writer to use the term 'orang-outang,' and his description of the animal was probably the first account of the chimpanzee published in Europe. Edward Tyson [...] borrowed the title for his own treatise on the chimpanzee from the first paragraph of Tulp's account, which contains the phrase 'orang-outang, sive homo sylvestris.'" (Norman). Tulp is also remembered for signing the fitness reports for the first Dutch settlers on the island of Manhattan, and for writing, with some doctor and chemist peers, the first dispensatory of Amsterdam, Pharmacopoea Amstelredamensis (1636).
References & Bibliography: Norman 2114 (this copy); NLM/Krivatsy 12007; Waller 9715; Willems 1155; Lindeboom, DMB p.2006. - Visit our website to see more images!