Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 256

CHARLES ESTIENNE (1504-1564) De dissectione partium corporis humani libri tres. Apud Simonem Colinaeum 1545 [23] 379 (misnumbered 375) pp., illus., plates. 33.7 cm.

Estienne was a member of the famous family of printers bearing the same name. He received his medical degree from the University of Paris in 1542, but had apparently been at work on this anatomical magnum opus for many years, as some of the plates are dated 1530 and 1531. This magnificent folio volume is one of the finest of all anatomical treatises. Certainly it was the finest printed in France in its century, and the sixty-two full-page woodcuts, artistically presenting the anatomical subjects in special poses before unusual background settings, are unusually sumptuous and imaginative. The anatomy itself is pre-Vesalian in conception and far from being as accurate as that of Vesalius. Some of the plates show diseased as well as normal anatomy.

Cited references: Choulant-Frank, pp. 152-155; Durling 1391; Garrison-Morton 378; Osler 2541; Waller 2819; Wellcome 6076

Gift of John Martin, M.D.