Physician's Illustrated Notebook.
England, circa 1844.
Quarto format manuscript on wove paper watermarked 1832; consisting of approximately thirty leaves of notes in pen and pencil, the text containing medical preparations and descriptions of illnesses; followed by a section that contains nine fully finished shaded pencil drawings colored in red and blue of anatomical dissections and one other subject, each with sections labeled and explanatory text, viz., 1) two images of a burning flame (candle and spirit lamp) with the sections of the flame labeled; 2) "A View of the Heart nearly in the situation in which it is seen when the chest is opened"; 3) back view of the heart; 4) a dissected torso from shoulders to pelvis with the ribs cut, heart visible, along with the aorta below the diaphragm as it splits into the two iliac arteries; 5) a dissected head illustrating the carotid artery and its connected vessels; 6) a dissected head showing the jaw bone, tongue, neck vertebrae, sinuses, the skull sawn in half, with an inset detail of the arteries; 7) the anterior lobes of the cerebrum with arteries; 8) a full arm with scapula showing muscles and blood vessels with inset detailed renderings of the hand and the arteries separated from the muscles; [and] 9) the lower leg with the tendon of the external oblique muscles from thigh to just below the knee, a second drawing from the knee down, showing muscles and arteries; followed by a page with images of three vertebrae in monochrome without explanatory text, and three pages that contain approximately twenty-five small pencil sketches of cells, magnified cartilage, papilla of the dermis, follicles, nerve ganglions, and other samples seen under a microscope; [with] two other unfinished anatomical pencil sketches; a section of leaves in the center left blank, approximately fifty leaves in all with text and illustrations; one ownership signature on ffep dated Highbury Vale, 1844, the name not discerned; bound in contemporary half leather and marbled paper boards, first leaf pasted down to front board, 8 x 6 1/4 in.