SCHRADER, Justus (editor).

Amstelodami [Amsterdam]: Typis Abrahami Wolfgang,1674

12mo, pp. (xxxii), 240, engraved title by Romeyn de Hooghe and 8 plates. Nineteenth century tree calf, gilt borders, spine richly gilt in compartments and with red morocco label, marbled edges and endpapers. Joints rubbed and just cracking at top, but a pretty copy.

FIRST EDITION. This is for all practical purposes the first illustrated edition of William Harvey's De Generatione Animalium, 1651 (G&M 467), the most important book on embryology to appear during the seventeenth century. This work however also demonstrates original research in embryology on its own account. Under the editorship of Schrader it combines excerpts from Harvey’s epochal book with the illustrated publication of the extensive experiments on the development of the chick embryo made by the Dutch physician Wilhelm Langly in 1655. “Langly mentions Harvey more than once, and evidently followed his example in careful observation, for his text is concise and accurate and his drawings very noteworthy… Langly’s figures…are therefore of interest in that they closely resemble the pictures which would have been needed for Harvey’s book had it been illustrated” (Needham, History of Embryology, pp. 153–144). Keynes 41. Russell, British Anatomy, 383.

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