THE ANATOMY OF THE BRAIN
1834. Item #78208
SPURZHEIM, J[ohann]. G[aspar]. THE ANATOMY OF THE BRAIN, With a General View of the Nervous System. Translated from the unpublished French manuscript by R. Willis. With an Appendix (... containing a paper read before the Royal Society on the 14th of May, 1829 and some remarks on Mr. Charles Bell's animadversions on phrenology), and Eighteen Plates. Boston: Marsh, Capen & Lyon, 1834. First American edition, revised by Charles H. Stedman, M. D. Eighteen black and white lithograph plates. xxvii,[9]-244 pp. Octavo, original green cloth sides, rubbed and worn at edges, which are awkwardly rebacked with black cloth tape. Ink number on first blank and a few pencil notes in margins of the initial text pages. Some light to moderate foxing throughout the text. Light foxing to some plates. Nonetheless, it is a sound and very good copy, and scarce thus, with the appendix and containing seven more plates than the first edition Spurzheim (German, 1776-1832), a noted phrenologist, wrote and lectured widely, especially in England and France. He first studied medicine in Vienna, where he met and began a collaboration with Dr. Franz Joseph Gall researching cerebral anatomy. They co-wrote many works, including Anatomie et physiologie du systeme nerveux en general, et du cerveau en particulier (4 vols. and atlas. Paris, 1810-19), wherein they introduced the important theory of localization of cerebral function, although in a somewhat fantastic form, which gave rise to the pseudo-science of phrenelogy (GM 1389). "Although phrenology was eventually discredited, the theory... must justly be considered a major contribution to anatomy and physiology." (Heirs to Hippocrates).
Price: $150.00