Lot 101: CAMPER, Petrus (1722-1789). Demonstrationum anatomico-pathologicarum. Liber primus, continens brachii humani fabricam et morbos. [-Liber secundus, continens pelvis humanae fabricam et morbos] . Amsterdam: Joann Schreuder and Pieter Mortier,

CAMPER, Petrus (1722-1789). Demonstrationum anatomico-pathologicarum. Liber primus, continens brachii humani fabricam et morbos. [-Liber secundus, continens pelvis humanae fabricam et morbos]. Amsterdam: Joann Schreuder and Pieter Mortier, 1760-1762.

2 parts in one, 2o (657 x 464 mm). 8 engraved plates (some occasional minor soiling). Contemporary half-vellum, limp marbled boards (some wear, repair to vellum along spine, edges reinforced with marbled paper). Provenance: Ira M. Rutkow (pencil signature on rear flyleaf).

FIRST EDITION. Camper's education included both art and medicine, and he tried his hand at all forms of plastic and graphic arts, from marble sculpting to oil painting to drawing and engraving. In addition to professorships of anatomy and surgery, he taught art and artistic anatomy, and wrote on art theory, especially on the aesthetics of the human form. Camper made many anatomical drawings, including contributions to William Smellie's Sett of Anatomical Tables (1754); his drawings are noted for their bold and graceful style. The nearly life-size studies of the arm and pelvis reproduced in these publications were designed for the use of surgeons. Part one includes the description of Camper's chiasm, "that decussation of the superficialis tendon behind the profundus of the finger"(Boyes, On the Shoulders of Giants, p. 12; also pp. 13-14). Choulant-Frank, pp. 284-88. Heirs of Hippocrates 951; Roberts & Tomlinson pp. 340-42; Wellcome II, 293.