Rare Books

Special Collections holds a number of important texts and atlases in the early science of cosmography, which attempted to map the position of earth relative to the other heavenly bodies. When these books are viewed together, they dramatize the changing conception of the cosmos throughout the centuries. Below is a list of selected works, including early editions of Pierre Gassendi and Alexander von Humboldt, as well as more recent contributions to the field.

See also the related list of Early Maps & Atlases in the "History of Books and Printing" tab of this guide. 

• Sphaera mundi. Compiled by Joannes de Sacro Bosco during the first half of the 13th century, this is considered the most influential pre-Copernican work on astronomy in Europe. It was widely used as a medieval university text. The first printed edition was published in 1472; Special Collections' edition dates from 1490.
   
• Cosmographiæ introductio: cum quibusdam geometriæ ac astronomiæ principijs ad eam rem necessarijs by Peter Apian. Early edition (1533) of this work by an influential cosmographer.
   
• Institutio Astronomica by Pierre Gassendi. First edition (1653) of this collection of landmark astronomical texts, and first publication in England of all three works: Gassendi's Institutio Astronomica, Galileo’s Sidereus Nuncius and Johannes Kepler’s Dioptrice.
   
• Cosmographie methodique et élémentaire by Claude Buy de Mornas. Illustrated first edition (1770).
   
• A New Atlas of the Mundane System, or of Geography and Cosmography: Describing the Heavens and the Earth, the Distances, Motions, and Magnitudes of the Celestial Bodies by Samuel Dunn. 2nd edition (1788).
   
• Mécanique céleste by Pierre Simon, marquis de Laplace. Translated by Nathaniel Bowditch; 2nd edition (1829-39).
   
• The Celebrated "Moon Story" by Richard Adams Locke. The "Great Moon Hoax" was a series of six articles published in a New York newspaper, beginning on August 25, 1835, about the supposed discovery of life on the Moon. The discoveries were falsely attributed to astronomer Sir John Herschel, discoverer of Uranus.
   
• Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe by Alexander von Humboldt. Volume 3 from a five-volume set (1851-1875) translated from the German by E. C. Otté.
   
• Stars in the Making by Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin. Cecilia Payne's thesis, Stellar Atmospheres (1925), was famously described by astronomer Otto Struve as “the most brilliant PhD thesis ever written in astronomy.” In Stars in the Making (1959), Payne dramatizes the evolution of the stars as a play in which the stars follow their destinies—getting born, spinning, shedding, and splitting, becoming rejuvenated.
   
• Star Poems by Karen Hanmer. This 2008 artist's book presents responses to the night sky across the ages by philosophers, artists, and poets from Plato and Byron to contemporary writers and astronauts. The text is paired with 17th century mythological images of constellation forms and images of early star gazers on a background of a NASA photograph of the Milky Way.

Chemistry & Physics

Our holdings in these interconnected fields begin with Sir Robert Boyle (1627-1691), cross the Atlantic with Benjamin Franklin's accounts of his inventions, and cover many other major advances in the subsequent centuries. But the highlight of this list is a rare and exciting first edition of Sir Isaac Newton's Opticks (1704).

• Nevv experiments physico-mechanical, touching the spring of the air, and its effects (1662) by Robert Boyle. Boyle is largely regarded today as the first modern chemist. This work describes his most enduring discovery, now known as "Boyle's law."
   
• The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle (1772). Contains Boyle's The Sceptical Chymist, a cornerstone book in chemistry.
   
• Optical Lectures: Read in the Publick Schools of the University of Cambridge, Anno Domini 1669, by Isaac Newton, first edition (published posthumously 1728). As Newton's first major scientific treatise, the Lectures mark a key transition between his early years of discovery and his mature publications, such as the Opticks.    
   
• Opticks by Isaac Newton, very rare first edition (1704) of this seminal work. Subtitle: A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light: Also Two Treatises of the Species and Magnitude of Curvilinear Figures.
   

• The Works of the Late Dr. Benjamin Franklin: Consisting of His Life Written by Himself: Together with Essays Humorous, Moral, and Literary, Chiefly in the Manner of the Spectator. Founding Father Benjamin Franklin was a major figure in the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. Special Collections' copy is one of a number of early American editions of Franklin's Autobiography that descend from the first French edition (1791), by way of an English translation printed in London in 1793.
   
• Elements of Chemistry in a New Systematic Order Containing All the Modern Discoveries by Antoine Lavoisier (5th edition, 1806). In this revolutionary work, Lavoisier sets a foundation for modern concepts of chemistry. As a result of the discoveries described here, the old phlogiston theory was replaced with the oxygen theory of combustion.
   
• Essai sur la philosophie des sciences, ou, exposition analytique d'une classification naturelle de toutes les connaissances humaines by André-Marie Ampère (first edition, 1834). Ampère is one of the founders of classical electromagnetism, which he called "electrodynamics."
  
  
• Familiar Letters on Chemistry, and Its Relation to Commerce, Physiology and Agriculture by Justus Liebig (first edition, 1843). Liebig is usually considered the founder of organic chemistry. In addition, as a professor, he began the modern laboratory-based teaching method.
   
• Elements of Chemistry: Including the History of the Imponderables and the Inorganic Chemistry of the Late Edward Turner (1846). Edward Turner (1796-1837) was a Jamaican-born British physician and chemist. This edition is an early republication of his popular chemistry textbook, the first to use chemical symbols and formulae and to include organic chemistry.
   
• Experimental Researches in Chemistry and Physics by Michael Faraday (first edition, 1859). Faraday's main discoveries include the principles underlying electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism and electrolysis.
   
• Radio-activity by Ernest Rutherford (first edition, 1904). Rutherford, the father of nuclear physics, describes the research that led to his model of a nuclear atom.
   
• The Discovery of Radium: Address by Madame M. Curie at Vassar College, May 14, 1921. In this speech, Curie discusses her discovery of polonium and radium and her process for producing radium in a pure metallic state. Special Collections also holds the 1938 biography of Marie Curie written by her daughter, Eve.

Euclidean Texts

Known as the father of geometry, Euclid was a Greek scholar active during the reign of Ptolemy I (323-283 BCE). His book Elements served as the main textbook for teaching mathematics into the twentieth century. His work deducing theorems from a small set of axioms is now known as Euclidean geometry.

Below is a small sampling of editions of Euclid's work, spanning several centuries:

• Les septieme, huictieme, et neufieme, livres des Elemens d'Euclide (1565). Bound with over ten other works, mainly mathematical, in French and Dutch. Note especially the works by Archimedes and Simon Stevin.

• Cursus mathematicus: or A compleat course of the mathematicks by Jacques Ozanam (1712). A course in mathematics in five volumes, covering algebra and the Elements of Euclid; arithmetic and trigonometry; geometry and fortification; mechanics and perspective; and geography and dialling. Originally in French and translated into English by Jean Theophilus Desaguliers.
   
• The instructions given in the Drawing School established by the Dublin Society... (1769-72). Joseph Fenn, Irish mathematics master, created one of the first "modern" algebra texts. In "The instructions given...", he covers the Euclidean elements; discusses tides and their calculation; cites Leibniz and uses his standards of notation; and uses Newton’s term “fluxion” (meaning "calculus").
   
• The first six books of the elements of Euclid, in which coloured diagrams and symbols are used instead of letters for the greater ease of learners by Oliver Byrne (1847). Irish professor of mathematics Byrne transformed Euclid’s mathematical proofs and propositions into one of the first multicolor printed books, illustrated with diagrams in red, blue, yellow, and black.
   
• Elements of Geometry, Book 1 by John Keill (1944). This edition was created by renowned book designer Bruce Rogers and contains an introduction from an essay by French poet Paul Valéry.

Famous Mathematicians

• Albertus Durerus Nurembergensis pictor... by Albrecht Dürer (1532). In this treatise on geometry, the famous German Renaissance printmaker and engraver covers subjects including perspective and geometrical illustration. Also known as the Four Books on Measurement.
   
• Apollonius Redivivus, Seu Restituta Apollonii Pergaei Inclinationum Geometria (1607). Marino Ghetaldi's reconstruction of a lost work by Apollonius of Perga (late 3rd – early 2nd centuries BC), a Greek geometer and astronomer known for his theories on conic sections. His definitions of the terms ellipse, parabola, and hyperbola are the ones in use today.
   
• Opera Omnia by Gottfried Leibniz (1768). Leibniz (1646-1716), a German Enlightenment philosopher and mathematician, developed the differential and integral calculus prior to and independently of Isaac Newton.
   
• Arithmetica Universalis: Sive de Compositione et Resolutione Arithmetica Liber by Isaac Newton (1722, second Latin edition). The Arithmetica, based on Newton's lecture notes, touches on algebraic notation, arithmetic, the relationship between geometry and algebra, and the solution of equations. Newton was unhappy with the publication and so refused to have his name appear.

Roman Technology and Engineering

• Tabvla itineraria ex illustri Peutingerorum bibliotheca, quae Augustae Vindelicorum beneficio Marci Velseri Septem-viri Augustani in lucem edita; or, Peutinger table (originally 13th century): The Peutinger Table is an illustrated itinerarium (an ancient Roman road map) showing the layout of the cursus publicus, the road network of the Roman Empire.  This facsimile originates from 8 folded maps reduced by Georg Horn, which were taken from Histoire des grands chemin de l'Empire romain, by Nicolas Bergier (1567-1623).
   

• Piranesi Views of Rome: Six Fine Prints Ready for Framing (originally 18th century) by Giovanni Piranesi. Piranesi traveled to Rome in 1740 as a draftsman to the Venetian ambassador and soon developed his distinctive etching style that produced thousands of beautiful copper engravings of Roman antiquities. In this series of prints, his most famous work, he was able to capture the architectural and engineering marvels of the ancient Romans. 

• M. Vitruvii Pollionis De Architectura Libri Decem: Ad Optimas Editiones Collati Praemittitur Notitia Literaria Studiis Societatis Bipontinae (1807) by Pollio Vitruvius. This handbook based on Greek architecture by Roman engineer Vitruvius is one of the few original Roman works of this type to survive.
  

Technology Through the Centuries

• Gutenberg Bible by Johann Gutenberg (originally 15th century). Facsimile of the Gutenberg Bible, the first work printed on the movable type printing press.

• Encyclopédie; ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers (1751-65) by Denis Diderot. Creator of the first modern encyclopedia, Diderot preserved contemporary technologies through detailed diagrams and descriptions.

• The Works of the Late Dr. Benjamin Franklin: Consisting of His Life Written by Himself: Together with Essays Humorous, Moral, and Literary, Chiefly in the Manner of the Spectator. Founding Father Benjamin Franklin was a major figure in the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. Special Collections' copy is one of a number of early American editions of Franklin's Autobiography that descend from the first French edition (1791), by way of an English translation printed in London in 1793.

• The Steam Engine: Comprising an Account of Its Invention and Progressive Improvement (1827) by Thomas Tredgold, English engineer and author, known for his early work on railroad construction. His definition of civil engineering formed the basis of the charter of the Institution of Civil Engineers.

• Authorship of the practical electric telegraph of Great Britain : or, The Brunel award vindicated, in VII letters containing extracts from the arbitration evidence of 1841, edited in assertion of his brother's rights by Thomas Fothergill Cooke (1868). Sir Wiliam Cooke co-invented the electric telegraph with Charles Wheatstone, but the two went to court in 1841 over priority of invention. This account by William Cooke's brother Thomas was published the same year that William himself was knighted; this edition is inscribed by the author.

• Lectures on the Mechanical Theory of Heat, and the Steam Engine (1872) by R.S. McCulloh. An early edition produced from the lecture notes of McCulloh, a civil engineer and professor of mechanics and thermodynamics at the Washington and Lee University. In 1876, this collection of notes was first published as a book.

Overview

Early medical knowledge is solidly represented in Special Collections. Come for the wide range of 16th-19th century treatises, and stay for the elaborate reproductions of medieval texts! 

Facsimiles of Early Medical Texts

• Herbolarium et Materia Medica (originally 9th century). A medical anthology commissioned by Charlemagne, concerning the world of plants and animals as well as the healing arts of the Early Middle Ages. The manuscript is a compilation of Latin texts from multiple sources, including "Curae herbarum" derived from Dioscorides’s De materia medica.
   
• Medicina y Farmacia de Federico II (originally 13th century). This Mid-Byzantine style manuscript depicts not only plants and animals, but also curative measures, doctors and their patients, and often the places where these cures were administered.
   
• Libro de los Medicamentos Simples (originally 12th-15th century). The core of this manuscript text is a Middle French translation of a widely-disseminated 12th-century Latin compendium attributed to Matthaeus Platearius, a physician from Salerno, Italy. The work is a compendium of classical knowledge related to the use of animal, vegetable and mineral substances to cure or relieve disease. Of interest are annotations by 16th-century physicians, voicing their distaste for some of the vernacular terms in the codex and replacing them with Greek and Latin words.
   
• Andreas Vesalius (originally 1545). Vesalius was author of one of the most influential books on human anatomy, De Humani Corporis Fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body). It is considered the first accurate anatomy of the human body, based on his own dissections of human cadavers. This facsimile reproduces Thomas Geminus’s superb illustrations for Vesalius's work.

Medicine Through the Centuries

• The planter's and mariner's medical companion: treating according to the most successful practice... by James Ewell (1807). Pictured below. 
   

• Hippodratous Aphorismoi, Hippocratis Aphorismi, ad fidem veterum monimentorum castigati, latine versi (1779). The Aphorisms of Hippocrates (c. 460 – c. 370 BC), a long series of propositions concerning the symptoms and diagnosis of disease and the art of healing and medicine. 

• A Cornelii Celsi de re medica. Libri octo (1772). By Aulus Cornelius Celsus (c. 25 BC – c. 50 AD). Celsus was a Roman encyclopaedist, known for his extant medical work, De Medicina, which is believed to be the only surviving section of a much larger encyclopedia. The De Medicina is considered one of the best sources concerning medical knowledge in the Roman world. 

• Sylva Sylvarum: Or a Naturall Historie in Ten Centuries (1627) by Francis Bacon. An anthology of one thousand paragraphs consisting of extracts from many books, mostly from antiquity, and Bacon's own experiments and observations. Numerous passages deal with medical treatments for the prolongation of life and the preservation of flesh.

• An Essay on Diseases Incidental to Europeans in Hot Climates: With the Method of Preventing Their Fatal Consequences (1792) by James Lind. Lind is considered the "founder of naval hygiene in England" and is remembered for his application of citrus juice to overcome the severe problem of scurvy. Originally published 1771.

• Contagious and Infectious Diseases: Measures for Their Prevention and Arrest ; Small Pox (variola) ; Modified Small Pox (varioloid) ; Chicken Pox (varicella) ; Cow Pox (variolæ Vaccinaæ) ; Vaccination, Spurious Vaccination : Prepared for the Guidance of the Quarantine Officers and Sanitary Inspectors (1884) by Joseph Jones, professor of Chemistry at University of Louisiana and President of the Board of Health of Louisiana. He was first to discover the plasmodium of malarial fever. Pairs well with 19th-century diaries chronicling personal experiences of epidemics and quarantines (see the Louisiana & Lower Mississippi Valley Collections).

• Conditioned Reflexes: An Investigation of the Physiological Activity of the Cerebral Cortex (1940) by Ivan Pavlov. A groundbreaking work on the development of the conditioned reflex in animals.

In addition to the works above, Special Collections holds a collection of books donated by Isidore Cohn, a prominent New Orleans surgeon and medical educator.