Aphorismes sur la connoissance et la cure des maladies, traduits en François par ***. - Traité du vertige, avec la description d'une catalepsie hystérique, & une lettre à Monsieur Astruc, dans laquelle on répond à la critique qu'il a faite d'une dissertation de l'auteur sur les maladies vénériennes

Very rare first edition of this french translation of Boerhaave’s Aphorismi (1709), issued by La Mettrie in the very year of the author’s death (most bibliographies record only the 1739 edition), (cf. Wellcome II, 185).

Contemporary half brown sheepskin with corners, spine with four raised bands ruled in blind, lacking title label, minor losses at the headcaps and rubbing to the spine, red speckled edges, period binding restored.

A collection of precepts concerning diagnosis and therapy.

La Mettrie was a pupil of Boerhaave at Leiden, which accounts for the lasting interest he showed throughout his life in the writings of the Dutch physician.

Bound after Julien Offray de La Mettrie: "Traité du vertige, avec la description d'une catalepsie hystérique, & une lettre à Monsieur Astruc, dans laquelle on répond à la critique qu'il a faite d'une dissertation de l'auteur sur les maladies vénériennes", printed in Paris by Huart and Briasson in 1738 (half-title, 141-[2] pp.).

Very rare first edition of La Mettrie’s very first independent work (1709–1751), at a time when he had specialised in venereal diseases; his philosophical writings would follow only from 1745 onwards (cf. Wellcome III, 438).

Engraved armorial bookplate pasted to a pastedown.