De conceptu, et generatione hominis... Later ed

Rueff, Jacob (1500-1588). De conceptu, et generatione hominis: De matrice et eius partibus, nec non de conditione infantis in utero . . . [6], 92ff., numbered on rectos. Woodcut illustrations. Frankfurt: apud Petrum Fabricium, impensis Sigismundi Feyrabendij, 1587. Old cartonnage boards, title lettered in ink on spine, text block beginning to separate from binding, second signature loose. Some browning (heavy in parts), title a bit soiled, but very good. Modern bookplate.

Later edition, but very rare, of Rueff's work (see Garrison-Morton.com 6141 for the 1554 first edition). Based on Rösslin's best-selling Rosengarten but intended for physicians and scholars as well as midwives, De conceptu was more than a practical handbook of midwifery. Among its illustrations are three full-page woodcuts of the female reproductive organs derived from Vesalius's Fabrica, a correct representation of the birthing stool, the toothed "duck-bill" pincer for removing a dead fetus, a smooth-edged forceps for live deliveries, and a series of smaller cuts depicting both real and imaginary monstrosities, which Rueff believed to be the work of the devil. Of greater interest, however, is the series of seven woodcuts illustrating contemporary ideas of mammalian embryology, which provide a unique and valuable insight into how early writers envisioned the process of embryonic development. Rueff's illustrations, based upon the writings of Galen and Aristotle, show the mixture of blood and semen coagulating in the womb into an egg-shaped mass; the subsequent development of organs and blood-vessels (taken from observations of chicken embryos); the arrangement of these into an outline of the human form; and the completed fetus. Cutter & Viets, A Short History of Midwifery, pp. 188-190.