Search Results: Authors starting with B from SOPHIA RARE BOOKS

Frankfurt: Wolfgang Richter for Anton Humm, 1614. First edition. anticipated the inverse square law four centuries before Newton. First editions of these two rare works on optics by the 'Doctor Mirabilis' Roger Bacon (1214/1220-1292) - 'perspectiva' for Bacon had a different meaning from today's 'perspective'. Bacon's "skill in mathematics, experimental science and mechanical inventions was so remarkable for his time that ... he acquired the reputation ... of being a magician" (Ferguson, Bibliotheca Chemica I, p. 65). It is appropriate that the Perspectiva and Specula mathematica are here bound together, not only because they have the same publisher and date, but because the subjects treated in the two works are complementary. The Perspectiva deals with the physiology of the eye and the geometrical optics of reflection and refraction, while the Specula mathematica presents Bacon's theory of the propagation of light. Remarkably, the latter work anticipates the inverse square law, normally ascribed to… Read More

Leipzig: Leopold Voss, 1827. First edition. Hardcover. First edition, rare, especially in original boards as here, of von Baer's landmark paper, in which he announced the discovery of the mammalian ovum. The idea that all animals begin as eggs had been current at least since the seventeenth century, when William Harvey, in his De Generatione Animalium (1651), defended it against the false notions of spontaneous generation and the "preformation" of the foetus. Harvey's theory was strengthened in 1672, when Reinier de Graaf published his observations of the Graafian vesicle (which contains the ovum) and the process of ovulation; and in 1825, when Johann Evangelista Purkinje announced his discovery of the germinal vesicle in the embryo. However, the mammalian ovum itself remained unobserved until von Baer, in his experiments with dogs and other mammals, "plot[ted] the course of ovulation and fertilization from its later stages back to the ovary and there ... identif[ied] the minute cell which was the… Read More

New York: American Telephone and Telegraph Company, 1949. First edition. Hardcover. THE INVENTION OF THE TRANSISTOR. First edition, journal issue in original printed wrappers, of the first comprehensive report on the transistor, one of the most important inventions of the 20th Century. "In the 1930s, Bell Labs scientists were trying to use ultrahigh frequency waves for telephone communications, and needed a more reliable detection method than the vacuum tube, which proved incapable of picking up rapid vibrations ... John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley spearheaded the Bell Labs effort to develop a new means of amplification," developing, by 1948, a novel device that would effectively amplify and control electric signals. "At roughly half an inch high, the first transistor was huge by today's standards, when 7 million transistors can fit onto a single silicon chip. But it was the very first solid state device capable of doing the amplification work of a vacuum tube, earning Bardeen,… Read More

Milan: Stamperia e Fonderia del Genio, 1804. First edition. Hardcover. SKIN GRAFTS. First edition of this very important work on transplantation and experimental surgery in animals. "The publication of Degli Innesti Animali (On grafting in Animals) by Giuseppe Baronio (1759-1811) in 1804, the first account of experimental autologous skin transplantation in a ram, marks the beginning of a new era for plastic surgery - the demonstration that skin transfer in the same individual is possible and successful" (Mazzola). His early skin grafts on sheep are among the first closely controlled medical experiments using animals, and according to Garrison-Morton "He successfully carried out full-thickness skin grafts after detachment from the body, and the first purely scientific research in the history of plastic surgery."  Baronio laid the foundation for human skin grafting, which was only successfully done for the first time 13 years later, in 1817. There are chapters on the Indian method for restoration of… Read More

Hafniae [Copenhagen]: Peter Haubold, 1672. First edition. A COMPLETE RUN OF ONE OF THE FIRST MEDICAL JOURNALS CONTAINING TEN CONTRIBUTIONS BY NIELS STENSEN. First edition, a rare complete run, of one of the first medical journals, and Denmark's first scientific journal. While Garrison (p. 301) lists three previous journals, two of these were published for just one issue; only the Giornale dei letterati (Parma, 1668-88) predates this. Among the many significant contributions in these volumes, including more than 100 by Bartholin himself, are the last published scientific works of Niels Stensen. Stensen returned from Italy to Denmark in 1672 to accept an appointment at the University of Copenhagen under Bartholin. During his stay he carried out a number of experiments, two of which are published in vol. I: 'Embryo monstro as finis Parisiis dissectus' (pp. 200-203) and 'Uterus Leporis Proprius, foetum resolventis' (pp. 203-207). During his stay in Italy, however, Stensen converted to Catholicism and… Read More

London: John Murray, 1863. First edition. TRAVELS IN AMAZONIA AND SUPPORT FOR DARWIN. First edition of Bates's wildly popular account of the years he spent in the Amazon region, during which he identified several thousand new species of insects and animals. He published it at the urging of Darwin, who wrote a lengthy appreciation of the book in the Natural History Review (vol. iii, 1863), and who considered it to be the best work of its kind. "During the whole of his sojourn amid the Brazilian forests his speculations were approximating to the theory of natural selection, and upon the publication of the Origin of Species he became a staunch and thoroughgoing adherent of the Darwinian hypothesis" (DNB). "In the autumn of 1847 Mr. A. R. Wallace, who has since acquired wide fame in connection with the Darwinian theory of Natural Selection, proposed to me a joint expedition to the river Amazons, for the purpose of exploring the Natural History of its banks; the plan being to make for ourselves a… Read More

Nuremberg: Christoff Gerhard for Paul Fürst, 1661. First edition. Hardcover. ONE OF THE GREATEST MACHINE BOOKS OF ITS TIME. First edition, an exceptionally fine copy in an untouched contemporary binding, of this superbly illustrated work with 154 plates of various types of powered mills and hydraulic machinery. "Here is another of the great 'machine' books with many beautiful engravings of gunpowder mills, saw mills, water raising devices, fire engines, roasting spits and so on. Böckler was a German architect and engineer interested in masses of gearing, complex workings, and devices that even by modern standards invite awe and admiration" (Hoover). The magnificent plates are of various types of motion drives powered by intricate systems of wheels employing water, wind, weights, horse power, human muscle, or some striking combinations of these. Plates 73 and 74 depict paper-making equipment and processes, which are "the clearest delineation of the art to this date" (Hunter, The Literature of… Read More

Plattsburgh, NY: F. P. Allen, 1833. First edition. DIBNER 130 "THE FIRST GREAT AMERICAN CONTRIBUTION TO PHYSIOLOGY" "THE MOST IMPORTANT PRESENTATION COPY EXTANT". First edition, inscribed by Beaumont to James W. Kingsbury, of "the most important study of digestion before Pavlov" (Garrison-Morton), this is "the first great American contribution to physiology" and "the most important presentation copy extant" (). Sir William Osler called Beaumont (1785-1853) "the pioneer physiologist of the United States, and the first to make a contribution of enduring value. His work remains a model of patient, persevering research." "While stationed at Fort Mackinac, near Michilimackinac, on Mackinac Island, Michigan, close to the Canadian border - then and now an extremely remote location - Beaumont had been presented with a unique opportunity in the person of one of his patients, the young French Canadian soldier Alexis St. Martin (1797?-1880), who was left with a permanent gastric fistula after suffering a… Read More

Paris: Firmin-Didot et Cie, 1903. First edition. PMM 393 - THE DISCOVERY OF RADIOACTIVITY THE RARE OFFPRINT. First edition, very rare offprint, of Becquerel's definitive memoir on his discovery of and investigations into radioactivity, including his identification of electrons in radiations of radium, and his account of the evidence of a radioactive transformation. "In 1903, Becquerel published the above massive volume of some three hundred and sixty pages, 'Researches into a New Property of Matter, or Radioactivity in Matter', which is his definitive work, containing a chronological narrative of his investigations, his mature conclusions and a bibliography of two hundred and fourteen treatises on radio-activity, dating from his own first paper in 1896" (PMM). "In 1896, [Becquerel's] previous work was overshadowed by his discovery of the phenomenon of natural radioactivity. Following a discussion with Henri Poincaré on the radiation which had recently been discovered by Röntgen (X-rays) and which… Read More

Paris: Regnaud Chaudiere, 1551. First edition. THE ORIGINS OF COMPARATIVE ANATOMY AND EMBRYOLOGY. First edition, very rare, of Belon's first biological work. "In his Histoire naturelle des estranges poissons marins (1551), Belon presented an orderly classification of 'fish' that included the sturgeon, the tuna, the malarmat (peristedion), the dolphin, and the hippopotamus ... Belon can be considered the originator of comparative anatomy. By the same token, he depicted a porpoise embryo and set forth the first notions of embryology" (DSB). "The revival of research into animal structure dates from the publication of Belon's work on the anatomy and classification of selective marine 'fishes,' a term under which Belon included the dolphin, the porpoise, and even the hippopotamus. Belon recorded several valuable observations on the anatomy of fish: he discussed comparative anatomy of the fish gut, liver and biliary apparatus, and was the first after Aristotle to describe the pyloric caeca. Belon also… Read More

Turin: heirs of Niccolò Bevilaqua, 1585. First edition. THE MOST IMPORTANT IMMEDIATE FORERUNNER OF GALILEO. First edition, very rare, of Benedetti's major work, his Book of Various Mathematical and Physical Ideas, which include theories of motion and experiments on falling bodies predating Galileo's studies on the subject, as well as studies of perspective presented in three-dimensional terms, fifty years before Desargues articulated his theories of projective geometry. "Benedetti is of special significance in the history of science as the most important immediate forerunner of Galileo ... Benedetti's final work, containing the most important Italian contribution to physical thought prior to Galileo, was the Diversarum speculationum (1585)" (Stillman Drake in DSB). "Giovanni Battista Benedetti is counted as one of the most brilliant mathematical and philosophical minds of the late Italian Renaissance. However, the theoretical and historical relevance of his work is still obscure in many respects.… Read More

[London]: Prynted in Southwarke in Saynt Thomas hospitall, by me James Nicolson, 1537. First edition. LAND AS PRIVATE PROPERTY - A NEW ERA OF CAPITALISM. First edition of "the first English textbook on geometrical land-measurement and surveying" (Buisseret, p. 39), an outstanding copy in its original binding, and extremely rare thus. Benese's Maner of Measurynge All Maner of Lande marks an epoch, the widespread idea of land as private property. "If there is a single date when the idea of land as private property can be said to have taken hold, it is 1538. In that year a tiny volume was published with a long title that began, This boke sheweth the maner of measurynge of all maner of lande. In it, the author, Sir Richard Benese, described for the first time in English how to calculate the area of a field or an entire estate ... [T]his interest in exact measurement was also new. Until then, what mattered was how much land would yield, not its size ... Accurate measurement became important in 1538… Read More

Bologna: Hieronymus de Benedictis, 1518. First edition. THE FIRST SEPARATE TREATISE ON HEAD INJURIES. First edition of the first separate treatise on head injuries and their neurosurgical treatment. "The work originated in a dispute between Berengario (1460-1530) and some other physicians over the treatment of Lorenzo de' Medici, who had suffered a skull fracture in battle. Berengario described several types of skull fractures and grouped the resulting lesions according to their symptoms, drawing from his own observations, as well as contemporary medical knowledge, to cite the relation between location and neurological effect. He also discussed prognosis, diagnosis and treatment, described the technique of craniotomy and provided detailed illustrations of contemporary neurosurgical instruments. The title illustration is a typical representation of the medieval cell doctrine, which localized mental functions in the ventricles or 'cells' of the brain" (Norman). "The Tractatus was written in little more… Read More

London: printed for Jacob Tonson, 1734. First edition. 'GHOSTS OF DEPARTED QUANTITIES'. First edition, a spectacular copy, and one of the first issued (see below), of Berkeley's famous attack on the calculus of Newton and Leibniz, which the historian Florian Cajori described as "the most spectacular event of the century in the history of British mathematics" (History of the Calculus, p. 57). "The Analyst is a criticism of the calculus, in both its Newtonian and Leibnizian formulations, arguing that the foundations of the calculus are incoherent and the reasoning employed inconsistent. Berkeley's powerful objections provoked numerous responses, and the task of replying to them set the agenda for much of British mathematics in the 1730s and 1740s" (Jesseph, p. 121). Perhaps the most famous passage in the book (p. 59), and a vivid example of Berkeley's wit, is his response to the idea that fluxions could be defined using ultimate ratios of vanishing quantities: 'It must, indeed, be acknowledged, that… Read More

Venice: Domenico Louvisa; Gabriel Hertz & Giovanni Manfrè, 1724. First edition. DANIEL BERNOULLI IN ITALY - FOUR WORKS BY HIM, HIS FRIENDS, AND HIS ADVERSARIES. Sammelband of four very rare works, all first editions, representing the work of the great Swiss mathematician Daniel Bernoulli, and of those of his friends and adversaries, during the period 1723-25 he spent in Italy. Bernoulli's Exercitationes is his first mathematical publication, the success of which resulted in his appointment to the Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg. The work is in four parts, and is notably polemical. In the first part Bernoulli develops the theory of recurrent series and applies it to problems of probability involving the card game Faro; here Bernoulli disputes the position of Giovanni Rizzetti, famed as a critic of Newton's theory of light. This was "evidence of his early interest in the work on the theory of probability done by his predecessors Montmort and De Moivre, which had been nourished by discussions with… Read More

Basel: Mechel, 1687. First edition. EXCEPTIONALLY RARE DISSERTATION BY JACOB BERNOULLI. First edition, exceptionally rare, of this dissertation which Bernoulli (1655-1705) submitted in order to secure the chair of mathematics at the University of Basel. This was the beginning of a remarkable career in mathematics, in which he "greatly advanced algebra, the infinitesimal calculus, the calculus of variations, mechanics, the theory of series, and the theory of probability [and] was one of the most significant promoters of the formal methods of higher analysis" (DSB). The dissertation, 'The solution of a triplet of problems, arithmetical, geometrical, and astronomical, together with corollaries from general mathematics,' treats three elementary problems in number theory, one arising from arithmetic, one from geometry, and one from astronomy/navigation. "Jacob Bernoulli's research on elementary mathematics, taken as a whole, constitutes a work of no mean importance, very diverse in content, lacking… Read More

Basel: Impensis Thurnisiorum Fratum, 1713. First edition. Hardcover. EVANS 8 - ESTABLISHED THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF THE CALCULUS OF PROBABILITIES. First edition, an exceptionally fine copy, rare in this condition. "Jakob 1 Bernoulli's posthumous treatise, edited by his nephew [Nicholas I Bernoulli], (the title literally means "the art of [dice] throwing") was the first significant book on probability theory: it set forth the fundamental principles of the calculus of probabilities and contained the first suggestion that the theory could extend beyond the boundaries of mathematics to apply to civic, moral and economic affairs. The work is divided into four parts, the first a commentary on Huygens's De ratiociniis in ludo aleae (1657), the second a treatise on permutations (a term Bernoulli invented) and combinations, containing the Bernoulli numbers, and the third an application of the theory of combinations to various games of chance. The fourth and most important part contains Bernoulli's… Read More

Basel: Impensis Thurnisiorum Fratum, 1713. First edition. Hardcover. ESTABLISHED THE PRINCIPLES OF THE CALCULUS OF PROBABILITIES. First edition, a very fine copy, rare in this condition. "Jakob 1 Bernoulli's posthumous treatise, edited by his nephew [Nicholas I Bernoulli], (the title literally means "the art of [dice] throwing") was the first significant book on probability theory: it set forth the fundamental principles of the calculus of probabilities and contained the first suggestion that the theory could extend beyond the boundaries of mathematics to apply to civic, moral and economic affairs. The work is divided into four parts, the first a commentary on Huygens's De ratiociniis in ludo aleae (1657), the second a treatise on permutations (a term Bernoulli invented) and combinations, containing the Bernoulli numbers, and the third an application of the theory of combinations to various games of chance. The fourth and most important part contains Bernoulli's philosophical thoughts on probability:… Read More

Paris: Masson, 1878. First edition. ALTITUDE PHYSIOLOGY - INSCRIBED PRESENTATION COPY. First edition, very rare in commerce, inscribed author's presentation copy, and an exceptionally fine copy, of Paul Bert's classic work, which marks the foundation of the study of altitude physiology. In this work, "Bert proved that the principal symptoms of altitude sickness arise from reduced partial pressure of oxygen and not from diminution of total pressure. Bert introduced oxygen apparatus to avert the dangerous consequences of ascent to high altitudes, and was the first to study the conditions of high-altitude ascents in a pressure chamber. He also explained the aetiology and mechanism of caisson disease. One of Bert's examiners for the licentiat was Claude Bernard who was so impressed with Bert's abilities that he invited him to become his laboratory assistant. In 1868 Bert was the successor of Claude Bernard's chair at the Sorbonne, Bernard having resigned to leave it vacant for him. It was in Paris that… Read More

D. M. Philadelpha: Printed by William Fry for Thomas Dobson, 1814. First edition. THE FIRST HEBREW BIBLE PRINTED IN AMERICA WITH THE EXTREMELY RARE LEAF EXPLAINING ITS GENESIS. First edition of the first Hebrew Bible printed in America, of major importance in the field of American Judaica - this copy with the leaf explaining the genesis of this edition and present in very few copies. Based on a Bible published in Amsterdam in 1705 by Everard van der Hooght, which became a model for many other editions of the Hebrew Bible, this project was launched by Jonathan Horwitz of Philadelphia in 1812, who sold his rights and subscriber list to Thomas Dobson in 1814. The prospectus promised that it would be printed "with a new pica Hebrew type, cast for the purpose at the foundery of Binny and Ronaldson." He had proposed the publication of an edition of the Hebrew Bible for the American market in 1812, but found that he faced stiff commercial competition to this endeavor from other publishers who were working… Read More