SCHURIG, Martin.

Dresden & Leipzig: Christoph Hekel the younger, .1732

4to, pp. (iv), 920, (31). Foxing throughout (as usual?). Contemporary vellum over boards, a little marked, boards slightly bowed and upper joint cracking at head, but a good copy. Early MS ex libris of Sebastian Edleber on front endpaper, old bookplate of F.H. Meinolph, also later library label, blind stamp on title and last text leaf, and ink stamps on verso of title.

FIRST EDITION. Schurig realised that he was living at the end of a great scientific movement following the Renaissance, and set himself to compile large treatises on aspects of medicine, taking care to give all references with meticulous accuracy, and to omit no work, significant or insignificant. This was the last but one of the series. “In it he treated compendiously of all the theories which had been advanced about embryology during the immediately preceding two centuries, and his chapters on foetal nutrition and foetal respiration throw a flood of light on to the intellectual climate in which Harvey and Mayow worked. Schurig’s bibliography is a very striking part of his book, extending to sixteen pages and including five hundred and sixty references; it was the first attempt of its kind, [and is]...of the greatest assistance” (Needham, History of embryology, pp. xii and 164–165).

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