Iconographie Pathologique de l'Oeuf Humain Feconde en rapport avec l'Etiologie de l'Avortement [Pathological Iconography of the Fertilized Human Egg in Relation to the Etiology of Abortion]

Paris: J. B. Bailliere et Fils, 1884. First edition.

1884 - LANDMARK MONOGRAPH ON HUMAN EMBRYOGENESIS WITH 19 COLOR LITHOGRAPHIC PLATES.

25.5x32 cm folio hardcover, red cloth binding, blindstamped ruled margins to covers, gilt title to cover and spine, i-viii, 188 pp, 19 chromolithographic plates. Light wear to covers, corners bumped, 2 small dents top of front cover, hinges weak but binding tight, light browning to first and last pages, pages otherewise crisp and unmarked, plates all bright--very good in custom archival mylar cover. This work, based on 300 cases, was begun in 1832, and includes 4 chapters: I. Formation and physiologic evolution of the human egg in the ovary; II. Changes in the fertilized egg during its physiologic evolution following its departure from the ovary; III. Principal disorders of the human egg during gestation. Etiology of spontaneous abortion; IV. Summary, conclusions from the preceding findings. Chromolithographed plates, printed by Mandret and Leuba were made from the author's drawings from individual cases. Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1646.

GASPARD-JOSEPH MARTIN SAINT-ANGE (1803-1888) came from a family of artisans from Rodez. A medical student, an extern in 1825, he defended his doctoral thesis "Anatomical and physiological research on the membranes of the brain and spinal cord" in 1829. A member of the Anatomical Society of Paris from 1826, he was recruited as a naturalist assistant at the Natural History Museum. Towards the end of his medical studies, as both an anatomist and physiologist, he specialized in the study of reproductive phenomena in vertebrates. In 1827, he studied the circulation of blood, considered in the human fetus and comparatively in 4 classes of vertebrates. In 1854, he published a study of the reproductive system in the five classes of vertebrate animals, from an anatomical, physiological and zoological point of view. In 1834, he was made a knight of the Legion of Honor after notable services for cholera and promoted to officer on 30 April 1847 for having won the two major government prizes at the Institut de France, one relating to the development of the foetus, the other to the reproductive organs.