La generation de l'homme par le moyen des oeufs, et la production des tumeurs impures par l'action des sels, défendues par Eudoxe et Philotime, contre Antigene

Second edition, after the first published in 1675.
Contemporary flexible vellum binding. Smooth spine with handwritten title, date and place at foot. Head crushed. Soiling and stains. Manuscript ownership inscription on title page. Good copy.

Some years earlier, the author had published a letter with the same title: La génération de l'homme par le moyen des oeufs. A response was soon circulated that mocked and ridiculed the author, even accusing him of blasphemy. Houppeville produced his defense in 1676 in the form of a dialogue between three people: one character defending the thesis of generation through eggs, an arbitrator questioning, and a third character supporting the falsity of this thesis. Through this skillful rhetorical dispute, the author was able to express his thesis against his anonymous contradictory who had sullied his reputation, a thesis which is none other than that animals and man are formed in an egg. The book makes numerous references to physicians of antiquity.