Discours de la mumie

4to [224 x 165 mm] of: (16) ff., 75 ff,

Plain suede, double-line fillet framing, ribbed spine, label on the spine, modern binding in imitation of sixteenth-century bindings; restorations on the upper corners of several leaves and a cut on the lateral margin of the final leaf with no effect on the text, marginal water stains.

Paré, Ambroise. ‘Discours d’Ambroise Paré, conseiller, et premier chirurgien du roy. Asçasoir, de la mumie, de la licorne, des venins, et de la peste.’

Paris: Gabriel Buon, 1582.

Rare first edition of Ambroise Paré’s work and the last of his major books, bound without the author’s portrait.

Adams, P-316; Brun, p. 267; Brunet, IV, 366; J. Doe, no. 24; Tchemerzine V, 39.

It is decorated with twelve woodcuts (first printing), six of which are full page, representing unicorns, rhinoceroses, elephants, and other fabulous animals.

Very rare first edition of Paré’s tract against ancient medicine, denouncing empirical practices and illustrated with twelve beautiful woodcuts.

Paré was among the first to oppose the medical use of ‘mummia’ or ‘mummy’ (a substance used in the embalming of mummies). In this book, he explains how the Chevalier Des Ursins, a French nobleman who had been injured, had been treated by many doctors and surgeons, including by him.

During his convalescence, Des Ursins inquired why he had not been given mummy to drink, to which Paré replied that it would have done more harm than good, as would have unicorn’s horn. Paré wrote this book to explain his reasons for not giving it and he supports his arguments by many experiments on living and inanimate objects.

This volume marked the end of the myth of the unicorn, which had lasted since the beginning of the Middle Ages.

Using his empirical method, and based on the work of his predecessors, the apothecaries Bacci and Marini, Ambroise Paré wrote his work for a broad audience: his promotion of scientific dissemination did indeed have a profound and lasting effect.

Paré explains that the unicorn is nothing other than a sea monster, which was confirmed later by Olaus Worms. He was firmly opposed to the use of water into which a unicorn horn, or alicorn, had been dipped as an antidote for venom and the plague.

In the tract on venom and in that on the use of ‘mummy’, Paré demonstrates how after lengthy experiments and based on common sense, drinks made from mummy powder should never be used to heal diseases.

This volume is one of the early treatises of modern medicine.

The treatise on the plague takes up the last thirty-two pages.

Ambroise Paré (1509–1590) was fortunate enough to heal the Duc François de Guise, near Boulogne in 1545. Henceforth, he treated great men such as the Duc de Rohan, the King of Navarre, and even Henri II, who appointed him as royal surgeon.

Unwashed copy, with fine margins.