Observations D'Histoire Naturelle, Faites Avec Le Microscope, Sur un grand nombre d'Insectes, & sur les Animalcules qui se trouvent dans les liqueurs preparees, & dans celles qui ne le sont pas, &c. by JOBLOT, Louis (1645-1723) - 1754

Paris:: Chez Briasson, 1754-55., 1754. 2 volumes in 1 (containing 4 parts). 4to. xx, 38, 124; vi, 78, 27, [1] pp. 53 folding engraved plates, with half-title (1), second part title (2), volume two title (3), second part title (4), head and tail pieces, initial letters. Original full mottled calf, elaborate gilt tooled spine, dark red gilt-stamped spine label; joints starting at extremities, corners worn. Book-label of J.-J. Blaise, Librairie, Paris. Very good copy. Second Edition, but considerably enlarged over the first edition Descriptions et Usages de Plusieurs Nouveaux Microscopes, 1718. This new edition contains more plates and added entomological notes. The remarkable plates show several views of microscopes and related instrumentation and the life forms observed by them, including insects (fly, flea, lice, butterflies, etc.) and marine life, salt crystals, etc. The chief appeal of this edition is the remarkable assortment of beautiful plates featuring the microscopes themselves. Joblot records his observations of many sorts of things including herb soup, rhubarb, mushrooms, grains (rye, oats, Turkish wheat), red worms as found in wells, the water-bug (grasshopper-like). / This is of one of the most desirable of eighteenth-century books on microscopy, valued for the lovely engravings devoted to Joblot's microscope, the first French microscopist. The 1718 edition was also the first separate treatise written on protozoology and or microorganisms. It contains the "first experiments ever made to disprove the theory" of spontaneous generation and the first to announce the regular process heat sterilization. :: Lechevalier. An exceedingly scarce work issued in two parts: the first dealing with the construction of the microscope, and the second with the animalcules studied by the author. "Joblot was the first to carry out experiments on heated infusions to see whether they were capable of producing animalcules." Bullock, The history of bacteriology, pp. 30, 70-71. / "The publication of Descriptions established Joblot as the first French microscopist. The first part of the book described several microscopes and their construction and introduced some improvement. . . Leeuwenhoek had observed the Protozoa previously but Joblot's is the earliest treatise on them." :: DSB VII, p. 110. / The large engraved vignette to each of the volumes and their sections (of which there are 4 vignettes), is believed to be Joblot himself in his laboratory. The plate VI, fig. 12 shows a remarkable curiosity: a mustached "organism" :: complete with a face! "Bemused infusorian gentleman observed in water sample." :: See: Nicholas P. Money, The Amoeba in the Room: Lives of the Microbes, p. 42. / REFERENCES: [Referencing the first edition]: Blake, NLM, p. 235; Bulloch, The history of bacteriology, passim; Clay & Court, History of the Microscope, pp. 57-59; Cole Library 1265; Cole, History of protozoology, pp. 39-40; DSB, VIII, pp. 110-112; Gascoigne 10867.1; Nissen, ZBI, 2114; Waller 10856; Wellcome, III, p. 356. See: Hubert Lechevalier, "Louis Joblot and His Microscopes," Bacteriological Reviews, Mar. 1976, pp. 241-258; David M. Damkaer, The Copepodologist's Cabinet: A Biographical and Bibliographical History, Part 1, p.31; Dieter Gerlach, Geschichte der Mikroskopie, 2009, p. 59. FULL TITLE: Observations D'Histoire Naturelle, Faites Avec Le Microscope, Sur un grand nombre d'Insectes, & sur les Animalcules qui se trouvent dans les liqueurs preparees, & dans celles qui ne le sont pas, &c. avec la Description & les Usages des differens Microscopes, &c. . . .