Epidemiorum et ephemeridum libri duo, Studio & operâ M. Iacobi Thevart Medici Parisiensis, digesti, Scholiis aliquot illustrati, & in lucem primùm editi

First edition of this important work, cf. Krivatsy 588. Garrison-Morton 1673, 5047 and 5085.

Full stiff ivory vellum, spine with four raised bands, the author’s name handwritten in black ink, one defect on the fourth band, blind-tooled rolls on the headcaps, gilt fillets highlighting the raised bands and framing the covers, small vellum losses on the covers, losses at the corners of the first and last endpaper, edges sprinkled red, contemporary binding.

Bound with this work are three further treatises by Guillaume de Baillou, all printed by Quesnel in 1640. Krivatsy, describing a volume made up in the same manner as ours, suggests that this collection may have been issued as such.

The additional works are described below:

   -   Definitiorum medicarum liber. (Title in red and black, 9 unnumbered ff., 108 pp. and 4 unnumbered ff. The title and preliminary leaves have been bound by mistake after the preliminaries of the first work).

Cf. Krivatsy 587. Garrison-Morton 6796.

First edition published in 1639, with cancel title dated 1640. "A glossary of Hippocratic terms" [Garrison-Morton].

 -    Commentarius in libellum Theophrasti De vertigine. (Title, 1 unnumbered dedication leaf, 41 pp., 1 unnumbered f.)

Cf. Krivatsy 582. First edition. "Includes Greek and Latin text of Theophrastus's De vertigine" [Krivatsy]

  -   De convulsionibus libellus. (Title, 7 unnumbered ff., 51 pp., 2 unnumbered ff.) Cf. Krivatsy 585.

First edition of this treatise on convulsions.

A very rare collection preserved in contemporary vellum.

Garrison-Morton cites this work three times for its contributions to three distinct areas of medicine: epidemiology, the identification of diphtheria, and that of tussis quintana or whooping cough.

"De Baillou was a follower of Hippocrates in his advancement of the doctrines of 'epidemic constitutions.' Crookshank regards him as the first modern epidemiologist (...) A pupil of Fernel, de Baillou was a brilliant writer and speaker. The above work includes a description of the epidemic of diphtheria in Paris, 1576. Later de Baillou advocated tracheotomy, although there is no evidence that he performed that operation (...) First description of whooping cough. Baillou called it tussis quintana." Cf. Garrison-Morton, loc. cit.

Guillaume de Baillou [1528-1616] was physician to Henri IV. Despite his reputation, he published nothing during his lifetime. He left his manuscripts to two doctors at the Paris Faculty, including Jacques Thévart, who edited the four treatises in this collection. "A student of Fernel, Guillaume de Baillou was one of the leading authorities on infectious disease in his day (...) He made new observations on smallpox. He identified croup as the laryngo-tracheal form of diphtheria, whose pharyngeal presentation had already been known to the Ancients, notably Aretaeus, who called it 'Syrian ulcer.' He drew a clear distinction between acute and chronic 'rheumatisms.' He was the first to identify 'tussis quintana,' which would soon after be called—mistakenly—whooping cough [coqueluche], an allusion to the hood [capuchon] placed over certain patients thought to be contagious." (our own translation) Cf. Bariéty and Coury, 459-460.