Rare Books

Most of the books in the Markus Library Rare Book Collection were bequeathed by Alfred Einstein Cohn (1879-1957), emeritus of The Rockefeller Institute, one of the first cardiologists in the U.S., a scholar whose interests encompassed many fields and earned his high regard in the world of culture.

The scope of the collection is broad, encompassing the humanities, medicine, and natural history, including botany, agriculture, and geography.

Dr. Cohn's rare volumes of scientific and medical interest, published in 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, include some of the major works of many of the great names in the history of medical science, often in the first editions: Celsus, Thomas Bartholinus, G. Borelli, Malpighi, Leuwenhoek, Richard Lower, Mead, and many others.

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Pascal, Blaise

The Rockefeller University

Pascal, Blaise. Traité de l'equilibre des liqueurs, et de la pesanteur de la masse de l'air, 1663

Full text

Subjects: Hydrostatics

Atmospheric pressure

Language: French

Format: Book

Summary: Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was among the greatest scientist and philosophers of his age. A mathematical prodigy as a child, he completed an original treatise on conic sections at the age of sixteen. He studied infinitesimal calculus; solved problems of general quadrature of the cycloid; contributed to the development of differential calculus; originated, with Fermat, the mathematical theory of probability. He also invented a mechanical calculator, the syringe, and the hydraulic press. He wrote treatises on the equilibrium of liquid solutions, on the weight and density of air, and on the arithmetic triangle
Pasteur, Louis

The Rockefeller University

Pasteur, Louis. Études sur la bière: ses maladies, causes qui les provoquent, procédé pour la rendre inaltérable; avec une théorie nouvelle de la fermentation, 1876

Full text

Subjects: Fermentation

Beer

Notes: Publisher’s advertisements on the final 4 unnumbered pages

Language: French
Pasteur, Louis

The Rockefeller University

Pasteur, Louis. Études sur le vin: ses maladies, causes qui les provoquent, procédés nouveaux pour le conserver et pour le vieillir, 1866

Full text

Subjects: Wine - Microbiology

Notes: First edition

Language: French
Pasteur, Louis

The Rockefeller University

Pasteur, Louis. Examen critique d'un écrit posthume de Claude Bernard sur la fermentation, 1879

Full text

Subjects: Bernard, Claude – 1813-1878

Fermentation

Notes: Includes bibliographical references

Language: French
Pavlov, Ivan Petrovich

The Rockefeller University

Pavlov, Ivan Petrovich. Die Arbeit der Verdauungsdrüsen Vorlesungen, 1898

Full text

Subjects: Digestion

Notes: For this work, Pavlov received the Nobel Prize in 1904

Language: German
Pavlov, Ivan Petrovich

The Rockefeller University

Pavlov, Ivan Petrovich. The work of digestive glands, 1902

Full text

Subjects: Digestion

Notes: First English translation by W. H. Thompson

Language: English
Pechey, John

The Rockefeller University

Pechey, John; Sydenham, Thomas. The whole works of that excellent practical physician, Dr. Thomas Sydenham: wherein not only the history and cures of acute diseases are treated of, after a new and accurate method: but also the shortest and safest way of curing most chronical diseases, 1740

Full text

Subjects: Medicine - Early works to 1800

Epidemics - History

Notes: The 11. edition. corrected from the Original Latin

Language: English
Petit-Radel, Philippe

The Rockefeller University

Petit-Radel, Philippe. Institutions de médecine, ou, Exposé sur la théorie et la pratique de cette science d'après les auteurs anciens et modernes, ouvrage didactique, contenant les connaissances générales, nécessaires à ceux qui se destinent à exercer l'art de guérir par Ph. Petit-Radel, Docteur-Régent et Professeur de la ci-devant Faculté de Médecine de Paris, et actuellement Professeur à l'Ecole de Médecine de la même ville, [1798]

Subjects: Medicine – Early works to 1800

Notes: In two volumes

Language: French
Pinel, Philippe

The Rockefeller University

Pinel, Philippe. Nosographie philosophique, ou, La méthode de l'analyse appliquée à la médecine, 1802-1803

Full text

Subjects: Nosology

Medicine

Notes: In three volumes

Language: French
Polybius

The Rockefeller University

Polybius. Histoire de Polybe, 1753

Subjects: History, Ancient.

Rome -- History -- Republic, 510-30 B.C.

Greece -- History.

Notes: 7 volumes

Language: French
Pomet, Pierre

The Rockefeller University

Pomet, Pierre. Histoire générale des drogues, simples et composées, renfermant dans les trois classes des végétaux, des animaux & des minéraux tout ce qui est l'objet de la physique, de la chimie, de la pharmacie, & des arts les plus utiles à la société des hommes, 1735

Full text

Subjects: Materia medica – Early works to 1800

Drugs

Notes: In two volumes

Language: French

Format: Book

Summary: Pierre Pomet (1658-1699) was a French pharmacologist, chemist, and botanist who became chief supplier of drugs to Louis XIV. After his apprenticeship, he traveled widely in Europe collecting botanical, mineral and medicinal samples and on his return opened a shop selling drugs. He was asked to give lectures at the Jardin des Plantes on the preparation of his products and he issued regular catalogs of them. This work was translated into English and German. Part I deals with botanical medicine and most of the illustrations are of plants but there are some interesting and unusual plates: curing tobacco, manufacturing sugar, processing indigo. Part II is on animals and their uses in medicine with interesting plates of unicorns, whales, rhinoceros and elephant, silk manufacture, bee-keeping, packing tuna into barrels. Part II opens with a long piece on the Egyptians and in particular on Mummies with an interesting plate. Part III is on fossils and minerals including gold, silver, iron, mercury, tin, copper, vitriol, lead, antimony, arsenic, sulfur and precious stones.
Priestley, Joseph

The Rockefeller University

Priestley, Joseph. Experiments and observations on different kinds of air, and other branches of natural philosophy, connected with the subject, 1790

Full text vol. 1

Full text vol.2

Full text vol.3

Subjects: Chemistry - Early works to 1800

Air

Notes: Includes index. "Being the former six volumes abridged and methodized, with many additions."

Language: English
Priestley, Joseph

The Rockefeller University

Priestley, Joseph. Lectures on history, and general policy: To which is prefixed, an essay on a course of liberal education for civil and active life, 1791

Full text

Subjects: World history – Early works to 1800

Notes: With an index

Language: English
Priestley, Joseph

The Rockefeller University

Priestley, Joseph. A description of a system of biography: with a catalogue of all the names inserted in it, and the dates annexed to them, 1803

Subjects: Chronology, Historical

Notes: First American edition

Language: English
Priestley, Joseph

The Rockefeller University

Priestley, Joseph. Disquisitions relating to matter and spirit. To which is added, the history of the philosophical doctrine concerning the origin of the soul, and the nature of matter; with its influence on Christianity, especially with respect to the doctrine of the pre-existence of Christ, 1777

Full text

Language: English
Pringle, John

The Rockefeller University

Pringle, John. Six discourses, 1783

Full text

Subjects: Pringle, John, - Sir – 1707-1782

Air – Early works to 1800

Notes: delivered by John Pringle ... [before] the Royal Society on the occasion of six annual assignments of Sir Godfrey Copley's medal. To which is prefixed the Life of the author, by Andrew Kippis

Language: English
Quintilianus, Marcus Fabius

The Rockefeller University

Quintilianus, Marcus Fabius M. Fabii Quinctiliani De institutione oratoria libri duodecim: cum duplice indice, 1693

Full text

Subjects: Rhetoric, Ancient

Oratory, Ancient

Language: Latin
Riolan, Jean

The Rockefeller University

Riolan, Jean. Encheiridium anatomicum et pathologicum, in quo, ex naturali constitutione partium, recessus a naturali statu demonstratur: ad usum theatri anatomici adornatum ... Cum triplici indice, tractatuum, capitum, ac rerum, accuratissimo, 1649

Subjects: Human Anatomy – Early works to 1800

Pathology – Early works to 1800

Language: Latin

Summary: Riolan, Jean, Jr.was a trained anatomist and dissector and emphasized the superiority of active anatomical observation over long reading and profound meditations. Like his father, he was a stern defender of traditional medicine and declared himself an enemy to chemical healers. He established his reputation through a series of textbooks, the most important being the second edition of Anthropographia (1626). These works reveal a mastery of original observation and of the classical and modern literature. In his later Encheiridium (1648) he included a systematic presentation of both morbid and normal anatomy. Though in his later years he tried to accept new discoveries, he continually tried to uphold Galenic medicine and opposed the anatomical interpretations of Pecquet, Bartholin, and Harvey.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques

The Rockefeller University

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Considérations sur le gouvernement de Pologne et sur sa réformation projetée; et Lettres sur la législation de la Corse, dans lesquelles tous les souverains trouveront des choses utiles, 1783

Full text

Subjects: Poland

Language: French
Sacco, Pompeo

The Rockefeller University

Sacco, Pompeo. Medicina theorico-practica ad saniorem sæculi mentem centenis, et ultra consultationibus digesta, quibus pene omnium abditæ morborum causæ illustrantur, atque præconceptis inhærendo principijs, optima ex optionis congeruntur medicamenta ad præfinitam morborum ideam studiose concinnata, 1686

Subjects: Medicine – Early works to 1800

Language: Latin