DEVERGIE, Marie-Nicolas (1784-1842)

First edition. The text was reprinted in Brussels 1857. The very rare atlas contains 126 splendid colour-printed engraved plates with details finished by hand. They were drawn from nature by Dupont the elder, assisted by Delestre the younger and Verollot. The drawings were engraved on copperplates by Johann Theodor Susemihl, a German engraver working in Paris, who is better known for his fine and beautiful zoological plates, especially of birds. The majority of the plates depict the genitalia, but here is also an unsual portrait supposed to be the first representation of a Negro patient in medical iconography. Marie-Nicolas Devergie, also called Devergie aîné (sometimes confused with Alphonse Devergie), was professor of anatomy and surgery, teacher and prosector at the military hospital, Val-de-Grace, in Paris. It was a special hospital for veneral diseases, from which Devergie got material for his great work, that was written in collaboration with his colleagues at Val-de-Grace.

Collation: Vol. I: (4), 1-152, 121-152, 153-274, (2); vol. II: (4), 290. Four sheets in volume I (pp 121-152) are cancels, with the original sheets (cancellands) also preserved. Pp (8) half-title, title, list of plates. Engraved portrait of Devergie and 126 colour-printed engraved plates finished by hand. Plates numbered up to 150 with several numbers omitted. Fully complete in accordance with the list of plates.

Binding: Two volumes & atlas. Contemporary half calf with green spine labels, worn (text volume). Atlas volume rebound in 20th century brown half calf with marbled boards.

Provenance: Johann Karl Proksch (1840-1923 [stamp]), whose massive five-volume bibliography of the literature of syphilis and veneral diseases and his two-volume work on the history of veneral diseases are standard reference works on the subject; Johan Almkvist (1869-1946, [signature]), professor of syphilology at Karolinska Institutet 1913-1934. Another stamp says "Dr. Herzfeld" and the signature of the printer "F. M. Maurice".

References: Proksch, Die Geschichte der venerischen Krankheiten, II (1900), 631-635; Hagelin, Rare and Important Books, KIB, 156-157.