Considerazioni ed esperienze intorno al creduto cervello di bue impietrito; Considerazioni ed esperienze intorno all generazione de’vermi nel corpo umano...;

Padua: Nella stamperia del Seminario, 1710. FIRST EDITIONS. Each work with separate title. With 14 folding plates (10 in the first volume, 4 in the second volume). Contemporary vellum in fine condition; from the library of Antonio Pacchioni (1665-1726), famous anatomist and physician. First editions of Vallisnieri's first two books. In the first work, the author describes the brain of an ox, which supposedly contained some curious stones, petrified during the lifetime of the animal. However, he denies that the mass found in the animal's head is actually its brain. We can't tell you exactly what it turned out to be; you have to read the book. The second work is an important treatise in parasitology, with observations on parasites in the human body. He proved that these parasites were not due to spontaneous generation, as then frequently believed, but grew from eggs.

Vallisnieri (1661-1730), the famous pupil of Malpighi, was noted as a physician, professor of medicine at the University of Padua, and as a scientific investigator. He wrote extensively on embryology, biology, natural history and geology, and did fundamental research in the fields of helminthology and entomology.

Pacchioni (1665-1726), a pupil of Malpighi, was a successful physician in Rome and head doctor at the Hospital of San Giovanni in Laterano. He collaborated with Lancisi on the explanatory text of Eustachi's Tabulae anatomicae, but is best known for his Dissertatio epistolaris de glandulis conglobatis durae meningis humane (Rome, 1705) which describes the arachnoidal granulations and the slight depressions produced by the arachnoid tissue under the dura. Pacchioni's bodies and Pacchioni's depressions were coined from his discoveries.