LOWER, RICHARD. 1631-1691.


Tractatus de corde. Item de motu & colore sanguinis et chyli in eum transitu. London: John Redmayne for James Allestry, 1669. 8vo (165 x 103 mm). 7 engraved folding plates and leaf A6 in its original state. Modern calf antique. Minor marginal repairs to first blank, title, and last two leaves. Provenance: Cambridge, Queen's College ("Coll. Regin. Cant" contemporary inscription on first blank). "THE NEXT GREAT ADVANCE AFTER HARVEY IN THE PHYSIOLOGY OF BLOOD CIRCULATION" (NORMAN).FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, (see below). "Lower was the first to demonstrate the scroll-like structure of the cardiac muscle. He was one of the first to transfuse blood. Chapter III of the above work records how Lower injected dark venous blood into the insufflated lungs; he concluded that its subsequent bright red colour was due to its absorption of some of the air passing through the lungs" (Garrison-Morton). "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 also 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 of pericardial effusion and the limiting effect of pericardial adhesions on the heart. The fourth chapter contains a brief review of the history of blood transfusion and an account of a transfusion from dog to dog, 'the first demonstration of the potential safety of a method which three centuries later was to revolutionize surgery'" (Norman). One of the rare copies in which leaf A6 is present and not a cancel. In 1935 Fulton references only 6 copies of the first issue and 8 of the second issue. Fulton 5; Garrison-Morton 761; Krivatsy 7157; Norman 1397; PMM 149; Russell 539; Waller 6046; Wellcome III, p 552; Wing L-3310.