The Hand, It's Mechanism and Vital Endowments as Evincing Design [Bridgewater Treatise IV]] Hardcover - 1835

Philadelphia, PA: Carey, Lea & Blanchard, 1835. Second edition. Hardcover. Acceptable. The Bridgewater Treatises On the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God as Minifested in the Creation". This is Treatise IV. The Second (likely first American) edition. Poor but sound. In original cloth, stained, with chipped paper label. Hinges are cracked but boards are secure. Light foxing to text. Contemporary signature on title page. Bell was a Scottish surgeon, anatomist, physiologist, neurologist, artist, and philosophical theologian. He is noted for discovering the difference between sensory nerves and motor nerves in the spinal cord. He is also noted for describing Bell's palsy. Bell’s experience treating victims of factory accidents at Middlesex Hospital, combined with his deep religious faith, undoubtedly influenced his decision to write about the hand when he was invited to contribute to theBridgewater Treatises. For him, “the perfection”of the human hand directly implied “the presence of the hand of the Creator” Bell’s treatise may be seen in an evolutionary context but also as an important cultural response tothe era’s struggle with the grim physical reality of the supersession of hand labor by automatic manufacture.