Dissertation sur l'origine de la peste. 1721.
Rare first edition of this work on the plague
[ASTRUC, Jean].
Dissertation sur l'origine des maladies épidémiques, et principalement sur l'origine de la peste, où l'on explique les causes de la propagation & de la cessation de cette maladie.
Montpellier, Jean Martel, 1721.
250 €
12mo (17x10.3 cm), (6)-(2 bl.)-118-(2)-(2 bl.) pages.
binding: Nineteenth-century quarter sheep, gilt flat spine lettered in gilt.
Binding slightly rubbed.
The plague ravaged Marseille and its region in 1720-1721.
A medical mission was dispatched by Chirac and concluded the non-contagiousness of the plague.
At the opposite, Astruc was a supporter of a contagious miasms in the air and therefore that it was difficult to protect.
He published anonymously his "Dissertation sur l'origine des maladies épidémiques et principalement sur l'origine de la peste" in 1721.
Besides the exhibition of his thesis, the author demonstrated a remarkable knowledge of the history of epidemics since the plague of Athens to that of Marseille through those knew that the Roman empires of Rome and Byzantium, those Middle Ages (in particular in 1348 and 1450), those of Hungary, England, etc..
Rare first edition in very good condition.
references: Dr Louis Dulieu [Revue d'histoire des sciences. 1973, Tome 26 n°2. pp. 113-135].
