Traité Médico-Philosophique sur l'Aliénation Mentale

Paris: J. Ant. Brosson, 1809. Second edition. 8vo. 2 engraved plates, 2 folding tables. [4], xxxii, 496 pp., half-title. Near contemporary half calf and marbled boards; rubbed, pp. 71-72 torn at bottom with loss of several words Inscribed on the half-title to dermatology pioneer Jean Louis Marc Alibert, "de la part de l'Auteur" (the inscription is slightly shaved). "In this entirely recast and greatly enlarged second edition, Pinel adds much new material and discusses the results of new and more humane methods of treatment for the insane" (Heirs of Hippocrates)."Pinel founded the French School of Psychiatry. He was among the first to treat the insane humanely; he dispensed with chains and placed his patients under the care of specially selected physicians. Garrison considered the above book one of the foremost medical classics, giving as it did a great impetus to humanitarian treatment of the insane.…The second French edition, Paris, Brosson, 1809 was very substantially enlarged by Pinel" (Garrison-Morton).PROVENANCE: Haskell F. Norman (bookplate, his sale Christie's, NY, 1998, lot 722)REFERENCE: Garrison-Morton 4922; Heirs of Hippocrates 1071; Norman 1703; Norman/Grolier 100, no. 54 (1st ed.)