2 FOSSILS L. 12 cm

[Chemistry] [Pharmacy] GEOFFROY (Etienne-François): Tractatus de materia medica, sive de medicamentorum simplicium. Historia, virtute, delectu & usu. Parisiis, Joannis Desaint & Caroli Saillant, 1741, 3 volumes. 12 by 19.5 cm. (4)-197-(3)-318-(6) pages + 1 folding plate; (4)-794-(6) pages and (4)-836 pages. Contemporary full calf, 5-rib spine, ornate bindings, red title-pieces. Minor old and well-executed restorations, very good condition of binding. Paper sometimes slightly foxed. 1) De fossilibus ; 2) De vegetabilibus exoticis ; 3) De vegetabilibus indigenis. First edition. Conlon 41: 497; European Americana 741: 93; Muller, Biblio. des Kaffee 91. "Previously 1st published, London, 1736, as Geoffroy's "A treatise of the fossil vegetable, and animal substances that are made use of in physick", which purports to be based upon a ms. of the author's lectures. American plants include balsam of Peru, cacao, ipecacuanha, Jamaica pepper, Virginian snakeroot, etc." (European Americana). "Etienne-François Geoffroy, a native of Paris, was a master apothecary and doctor of medicine in Paris. Geoffroy proposed a classification of chemical substances according to their greater or lesser "disposition to unite" with a reference substance. The idea that some substances could unite more easily than others was not new, but Geoffroy took credit for bringing together all available information in a large general table, later called the affinity table. The controversy between him and Louis LEMERY, one of his colleagues at the Académie, bears witness to the new way of practicing science, with everyone putting forward a conjecture that they tried to corroborate with experiments, and proposing new experiments to refute the opposing conjecture. This new art of scientific debate was to provide a solid foundation for the emerging science of chemistry.