Recherches sur la contagion du chancre

Paris: Adrien Delahaye, 1857. FIRST EDITION. Original printed wrappers; interior somewhat foxed, heavier on the preliminary and last leaves. From the library of Louis A. Duhring. First edition of Fournier's first printed treatise, the first of a number of important clinical works on the subject. Fournier (1832-1914), the favorite pupil of Ricord, here sets down his initial research on topics such as the incubation of syphilis, the primary syphilitic induration, the pseudo-chancre of the tertiary stage, the classification of the syphilides according to their chronology, syphilis in women, and the question of syphilitic abortions, etc.

"He devoted himself to the study of syphilis to the exclusion of nearly everything else. Fournier dominated French venerology in the last decades of the century as his master had done a generation before, and he was recognized throughout the Western World as an authority second to none on syphilis" (Crissey & Parish, The Dermatology and Syphilology of the Nineteenth Century, p. 221).

Extremely rare with no copies located of the present Recherches, only the Étude published the following year.