Primae lineae physiologiae in usum praelectionum academicarum auctae et emendatae.

Göttingen: ap. Viduam ab Vandenhoeck, 1751. Hardcover. Very Good+. MDCCLI [1751]. Small 8vo (156 x 96mm). 568, [4] pages, plus errata leaf. Signatures: A-A(8), Aa-Mm(8), Nn(4), X2 duplicate inserted between pp. 562-563, another dup. pp. 79-80 inserted between table of chapters and errata leaf. Engraved title-page vignette of compass with motto “fidem non derogat error,” one decorative woodcut engraved chapter head and tail-piece. Modern speckled calf signed by G. Pietersma A’dam with red morocco lettering label, “A.v.HALLER PHYSIOLOGIAE,” endpapers renewed; (contents slightly browned, small rust hole on A8, overall a solid copy). The fine engraved title device of the compass insignia and perfectionist motto, translating to “Faith does not lessen the error,” has a longstanding tradition in the medical scholarly community.

This is the new and corrected version, “Ad novam editionem,” of the Primae lineae physiologiae by Albrecht von Haller, first published in 1747. This edition was produced by Anna, the widow to the University of Göttingen book printer and publisher, and appeared before the English editions of 1754 and later. Haller was an anatomist from Bern and later professor of anatomy, botany, surgery, and medicine at the University of Göttingen. Together with his work on sensibility (“nervous power”) and irritability (“muscle power”) titled, De Partibus corporis humani sensilibus et irritabilibus (1753), the Primae lineae physiologiae, or “first lines,” is widely regarded as the foundational work in modern physiology. Haller’s physiology treatise was also the basis of his subsequent eight-volume work, Elementa physiologiae corporis humani (1757-66), and was probably the base text for Diderot’s Élements de physiologie; the latter went on to be the first major textbook of the biological sciences in European classrooms. Haller contributed largely to the progress of the study of anatomy along with several of his pupils who published some of the most important physiological dissertations of the 18th century. Haller’s work was notable, not only was he was an accomplished scholar and bibliographer; he sought to animate the studies of predecessors through rigorous research and experimentation. This work is notable as it contains Haller’s contributions to the resonance theory. He collaborated with the German anatomist Heinrich August Wrisberg (1739-1808), also his successor at Göttingen, on the augmentation of this particular edition, which appeared just four years after the first. Two other Latin editions followed this one, in 1765 and 1771. Notably, the first French translation of the Primae lineae physiologiae was made by Tarin in 1752 and in the following two years an English translation was prepared by Samuel Mihles in London and published with Innys and Richardson as Dr. Albert Haller’s Physiology. This Göttingen edition remains rare; OCLC returns nine institutional locations, with only four in the US.