HIGHMORE, NATHANIEL. 1613-1685.


Corporis humani disquisitio anatomica in qua sanguinis circulationem. The Hague: Samuel Broun, 1651. Small folio (278 x 179 mm). Leaf of letterpress description bound before frontispiece, engraved portrat frontispiece tipped in, additional engraved pictorial title, one engraved plate (numbered XII), 18 engraved illustrations in text. Rebacked long ago, retaining contemporary blind-ruled calf covers, marbled endpapers. Corners chipped, old ownership inscriptions and extensive margin notes. Provenance: Library of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland (bookplate).FIRST EDITION. Dedicated to William Harvey, the Corpus humani disquisitio anatomica was intended "to redesign physiology and anatomy in the direction of Harvey's theory of the circulation of the blood.... Agreeing with Harvey that the heart's sustaining relationship to the body was analogous to the sun in the wider macrocosm, Highmore explicitly defined the origin and function of circulation beyond Harvey's more circumspect treatment" (ODNB). "This was the first English work to accept Harvey's ideas on the circulation. The interesting engraved title compares the body allegorically to a garden" (Garrison-Morton). There are spectacular illustrations of the heart and vascular system. They represent the first original interpretation of the cardiovascular system after Harvey's discovery (which contained no illustrations save for the Fallopius/Bauhin illustration of the venous valves in the forearm. Highmore devotes the entire second part of his second book (pages 131-163) to the heart and circulation. Plates 13 and 14 are fine copper engravings that depict the interior of the opened heart with the connections of the great vessels. These are the first original anatomical plates of the heart published after the discovery of the circulation. Garrison-Morton 382; Krivatsy 5602; Norman 1071; Russell 416; Wellcome II, p 263.