Recherches sur la Production Artificielle des Monstruosites [Research on the Artificial Production of Monstrosities or Experimental Teratogenic Trials]

Paris: C. Reinwald & Cie, 1891. Second edition, revised and expanded.

LANDMARK ILLUSTRATED MONOGRAPH ON EXPERIMENTAL TERATOLOGY.

15.5 x 24.5 cm hardcover, cloth binding, blindstamped decorative rulings to covers, gilt title to spine, inscribed and signed in ink by author top of green free front endpaper, handstamps of "College de France" to half-title, i-xvi, 590 pp, 62 text figures, 16 chromolithograpic plates with facing descriptive text. Spine ends frayed, hinges starting, binding tight, light browning to pages, very good in custom archival mylar cover. The plates depict cardiac malformations, arrested hematopoiesis, hydrops fetalis, vascular malformations, cardiac heterotaxia, cyclopia, encephalocoele, anencephaly, twinning, and fused chick embryos. FRENCH LANGUAGE.

GARRISON-MORTON No. 534.65 "Dareste devoted his career to experimental teratology, and in this work established the field as a science. The second edition (1891) is greatly revised and enlarged. Contains a valuable history of experimental teratology."

CAMILLE DARESTE (1822 – 1899) was a French zoologist and pioneer in experimental embryology and teratology. He initially served as chair of the faculty of natural history at the University of Lille, and was subsequently appointed director of the laboratory of teratology at the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris. Following the work of Etienne and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, he became a founder of teratogeny, the experimental study of conditions for the artificial production of monstrosities. Beginning in 1855, he produced monstrous chick embryos by using "indirect methods" that exposed the egg to teratogenic factors such as altering incubation temperatures for several hours. In 1877 he was awarded the grand prize in physiology by the Académie des sciences for the first edition of Recherches sur la production artificielle de monstruosités. He discovered that the more serious abnormalities were induced by disruptions at earlier developmental stages. Based on his experiments he proposed five principles of teratology in the greatly expanded 1891 edition of his book (offered here).