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Jacob Rueff's De conceptu et generatione hominis

RUEFF, Jacob

De conceptu et genratione hominis, et iis quae circa hec potissimum consysderantur, libri sex. Zurich: Christopher Froschauer, 1554.

4to. [4], 105 leaves. With errata, historiated initials and 68 text woodcuts. Old vellum, covers somewhat warped; from the library of John Dow, surgeon, with his bookplate, and contemporary signature of Nollet on title, with annotations. Preserved in a slip case.

First edition (published simultaneously in Latin and German). This classic book on generation, conception and birth was based on the Rosengarten but intended for scholars as well as midwives. The author introduced new obstetrical instruments, corrected some of Roesslin's representations of the embryo in the womb and emphasized the importance of a knowledge of the internal female organs to the midwife.

Rueff (d. 1558), surgeon and professor of medicine and obstetrics at the university in Zurich, was the first to use true anatomical pictures in an obstetrical book. Many of his woodcuts portray fantastic abnormalities and correct some of the reproductive organs originally derived from Vesalius.

Durling, 3980; Hellman Collection, 29; Wellcome, I, 5611