L'homme de René Descartes, et la formation du foetus. Avec les remarques de Louis de le Forge. A quoy l'on a ajouté le monde ou traité de la lumière.

4to: [64]-511-[9] pp.

Contemp. sheep (corners bumped), gilt orn. spine on 5 raised bands (upper joint starting to split, head and tail def.).

Second edition, augmented and corrected (first French ed. 1664, 14 years after the author's death), of this work on physiology by Descartes (1595-1650). Ill. with numerous woodcuts in-text showing anatomical and geometrical drawings after the author. For a long time the work was considered as the first complete treatise on human physiology, the first attempt to cover the whole field of "animal physiology" and a physiological appendix to his "Discourse on method", 1637. Descartes considered the human body a material machine, directed by a rational soul located in the pineal gland.
Ref. BnF. - Cp. Garrison & Morton 574, Wellcome II:452.