978J. [Académie royale des sciences] Claude Perrault (1613-1688)

The natural history of animals containing the anatomical description of several creatures dissected by the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris. Wherein The Construction, Fabrick and genuine Use of the Parts, are exactly and finely delineated in Copper Plates, and the whole Enriched with many Curious Physical and no less useful Anatomical Remarks, being one of the most Considerable Productions of that Academy. Done into English by a Fellow of the Royal Society. To which is added an account of the measure of a degree of a great circle of the earth, Published by the Members of the same Academy: English’d by R.W. Srs. With an alphabetical table of the Names of the several Animals mention’d in this Volume. And likewise an Alphabetical Index to make the Work Compleat. Publish’d by an Order of Council of the Royal Society.

London : printed for R. Smith, at the Angel and Bible without Temple Barr, 1702.      Price $5,500

Folio 297 x 200 mm Signatures: [π4, a2, b3, A3, B-Z4, Aa-Ii4, Kk-Nn2; [-π]2, B-F4 .  Frontispiece and 35 copper engraved plates, Engraved additional title Some copies have a letterpress title for the second part [The Measure of the Earth, in this copy it was never bound in].  The plates each contain a general and several partial views of various animals after their dissection by the Royal Academy of Paris, of which Perrault was a member. – The last third of the work with an extensive contribution by the astronomer John Picard (1620-82) on the measurement of the Earth, illustrated with 5 excellently etched plates. – This is truly a beautiful copy!

 Provenance: 1. Library of the Earls of Hopetoun., with their heraldic lithographic bookplate on the front pastedown. 2. Modern printed bookplate with the monogram “DP” and three rodents, also mounted on the front pastedown. The book block partly cracked at the front hinge. Endpapers with glue stains and various short, older handwritten entries, first and last pages slightly browned throughout. Discreetly trimmed, retaining a sufficient white margin. Foxing along the edges, otherwise a well-preserved copy with strong printing and blurred etched plates on mostly pure white paper.

Translated by Alexander Pitfield from the French work by Claude Perrault, first published in 1669 under the title: ‘Description anatomique d’un caméleon’, and later (in 1682) under the title: ‘Description anatomique de divers animaux.’ The ‘Account’ was translated by Richard Waller.

Perrault (1613–1688) was an architect and anatomist, an active contributor to the Académie des Sciences. The second part is by Picard (1620–1682), the first person to measure the size of the Earth with a reasonable degree of accuracy. 

Perrault’s philosophy of medicine sprung from Galen, Greek physician of the Roman era, who understood biology in terms of the four humors (i.e., black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood). As the Age of Enlightenment saw the development of animal and plant classification systems, believers in a mechanistic theory of animal function, like Perrault and Buffon resisted. In mechanism, living things are thought to be akin to complicated machines, containing parts that lack any intrinsic relationship to one another. Although Galenism and mechanism kept Perrault from make significant contributions to modern biology, his work maintains its own inherent scientific value, given the parameters of his philosophies, and also serves to document the steps and missteps along the way to a better understanding of biology. 

ESTC No.: T113853. 

https://datb.cerl.org/estc/T113853

Short Link: https://wp.me/p3kzOR-9t0