LOWER, Richard (1631-1691). Tractatus de corde. Item De Motu & Colore Sanguinis et Chyli in eum Transitu. London: John Redmayne, 1669.

First edition, second issue in a contemporary binding of "the most important contribution to circulatory physiology after William Harvey’s De motu cordis" and the first account of blood transfusion (Grolier Medicine). Cornish by birth, Richard Lower became an associate of Thomas Willis and, along with Richard Hooke and Robert Boyle, spent the Interregnum performing experimental research at Oxford. His work and observations on the heart, lungs, and blood—including techniques for blood transfusion—are recorded in the present publication, which effectively completes Harvey's work on the heart.

It contains the first description of the heart as a muscle and the heartbeat as a muscular contraction. Lower was a pioneering experimental physiologist, and also described here is the series of experiments performed with Robert Hooke by which he demonstrated that the color of arterial blood is due to its contact with "fresh air” in the lungs. "Lower’s book received praise from British and Continental physicians and scientists and helped establish its author’s reputation as the leading investigator, after William Harvey, of the anatomy and physiology of the circulation of the blood" (Grolier Medicine).

This copy has leaf A6 in its cancelled state, replaced by the cancellans in which Lower mollifies his criticism of Edmund O’Meara, who had attacked his mentor and friend, Willis. In the cancellandum Meara is described as "outstanding for his exceptional stupidity and impudence." There have been only four copies of the uncancelled issue for sale at auction in the last century. Norman 1397; Grolier Medicine 34; Garrison and Morton 761; Grolier Medicine 34; Krivatsky 7157; PMM 149; Wing L-3310.

Octavo (164 x 106mm). 7 engraved folding plates (occasional small spots and stains, a few plates just shaved at plate mark). Contemporary French calf gilt with arms of Pierre-Daniel Huet, red sprinkled edges (neatly rebacked preserving original spine and endpapers). Custom box. Provenance: Pierre-Daniel Huet, 1630-1721, Bishop of Avranches, mathematician, scholar and editor of Delphin Classics (bookplate, shelfmark, and inscription noting gift in 1692 to:) – Paris Jesuits (printed slip).