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8vo (152 x 94mm). 7 folding engraved plates. (Some minor marginal toning.) Late 18th- or early 19th-century calf (rebacked preserving original spine, a little wear to spine ends and corners). Provenance: gift inscription on front free endpaper, signed “L. G.”

 

Second edition, First Elzevier edition, preceded by two London issues published earlier the same year. “Lower made the next great advance after Harvey in the physiology of blood circulation when he determined experimentally, with the assistance of Robert Hooke, that venous blood is changed to arterial blood in the lungs by virtue of its contact with air. The experiments leading to this discovery are reported in the third chapter of Lower's De Corde, a work that contains a number of other important observations, such as the scroll-like structure of the cardiac muscle (confirmed 250 years later by Mall), the heart's contractive and expulsive movements, the tamponade effect or pericardial effusion and the limiting effect of pericardial adhesions of the heart” (Norman 1397, first edition).  Krivatsy 7158; Rahir 1486; Wellcome III, p.552; Willems 1412.