KILIAN, Emil Paul Hermann

Presentation copy inscribed by the author to Magnus Retzius, the brother to Anders Retzius and professor of obstetrics at Karolinska Institute. The author was the son of the more famous obstetrician Hermann Friedrich Kilian (1800–1863), who described various deformities of the female pelvis and gave the first description of pelvis spinosa. This medical dissertation on a rare case of Caesarean section for rhacitic pelvis is illustrated by a hand-coloured lithographed plate of the patient made after a photograph by C. Philippart in Bonn. It is a very early example of the use of photography in illustrating an obstetrical book. This book with its interesting plate was in the exhibition The Body in Art and Science at the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm in 2005.

Collation: Pp (6), 23, (1). With two plates, one of which is a tone lithograph by Dr Weber, the other being a hand-coloured lithograph made after a photograph.

Binding: Contemporary blue, gilt ruled boards, with gilt edges.

Provenance: Inscribed by the author on front fly-leaf: "Seinem hochverehrten Gönner, Herrn Archiater & Professor Dr M. Retzius, bringt diese seine Erstlingsarbeit im Gefühle hochachtungsvollster Ergebenheit ganz gehorsamst dar – Der Verfasser. Bonn 9 Sept. 1856".