Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 542

THOMAS WILLIS (1621-1675) Opera medica & physica. Sumptibus Joannis Antonii Huguetan 1676 Vol. I: [52] 694 [26] pp., port., plates (part fold.); Vol. II: [24] 298 [12] [20] 180 [6] [28] 224 [4] pp., plates (part fold.). 23.1 cm.

For more information on this author or work, see number: 537

This is the first collected edition of Willis' voluminous writings, containing a fine portrait of Willis, together with many folding plates, some of which are from his celebrated Cerebri anatome. The three works present in the second volume, each with its own title page, include: De anima brutorum (see No. 540), Pharmaceutice rationalis (see No. 541), and Diatriba de medicamentorum operationibus in humano corpore, which also contains two poems eulogizing Willis. It is in this latter treatise that Willis gives a clear account of whooping cough and the first satisfactory figures on the structure of the lungs. Also included in Willis' Opera is William Croone's (1633-1684) De ratione motus musculorum (1664), one of the earliest works on muscular action. Croone, a graduate of Cambridge and one of the original founders of the Royal Society, had a large and prosperous practice, and, in accordance with his wishes, his wife endowed after his death the Croonian Lectures at the Royal College of Physicians, London. In the treatise, he expresses his theory that the body of the muscle is responsible for its contractile power which is brought about by a nourishing fluid from the arterial system in combination with another fluid of nervous origin.

See Related Record(s): 540 541

Cited references: Willis: Cushing W214 (Geneva ed., 1676, incomplete); Garrison-Morton 62 (Geneva ed., incomplete); Russell 877 (incomplete); Waller 10329 (Geneva ed., incomplete).

Gift of John Martin, M.D.