POUTEAU, Claude.

A Lyon: Chez Geoffroy Regnault,... .1760

8vo, pp. xii, 526, 1 leaf (list of plates, listing only two), and 5 folding engraved plates on 3 sheets (two plates are numbered 1 and two numbered 2, plates 2 and 3 are on the same sheet). Leaves E4 and H6 are cancels. Contemporary mottled calf, spine gilt in compartments, marbled endpapers. Early inscription on title deleted, short crack at top on upper joint, tiny (1 cm.) hole in leather of lower joint, tiny chip in top of spine, otherwise a fine copy.

FIRST EDITION. Pouteau studied surgery in Paris under Petit and Le Dran, but returned to his native Lyon to practise. He became famous for his improvements in the operation of lithotomy — his record with perineal lithotomy was probably never excelled, achieving only 2.5 percent mortality in 120 consecutive cases. Contrary to most other surgeons, Pouteau used the lithotome almost exclusively, devising a modification of his own, illustrated on the last plate. This collection of papers and observations in surgery, one of only three published works of Pouteau, includes chapters on cauterisation, head wounds, the stone, amputation and bandaging, etc.

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