DUNCAN (Daniel).

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DUNCAN (Daniel).
New and mechanical explanation of animal actions. Where it deals with the Functions of the Soul. With an easy Method to demonstrate exactly all the parts of the Brain, without cutting its own substance. Paris, Jean d'Houry, 1678. In-12, red morocco, Du Seuil decoration, decorated spine, inside roulette, gilt edges (contemporary binding). Krivatsy, n°3539. First edition of the author's first work, a forgotten precursor of neurophysiology. The physician Daniel Duncan (1650-1735), a native of Montauban and from a Scottish Protestant family, proposes here a mechanistic neurophysiology of motor skills and perceptions different from that of Descartes (cf. Olivier Walusinski, "Daniel Duncan ou le cerveau machine, un aperçu des neurosciences au XVIIe siècle" in Histoire des sciences médicales, 2018). Duncan is often cited as the first to have described the cavity of the septum pellucidum, also known as the "ventricle of Sylvus" - named after its supposed discoverer, the Dutch anatomist Franciscus de Le Boë (17th century), known as Sylvus (cf. Dictionnaire médical de l'Académie de médecine, online version 2020). Chapter V (pp. 56-79) is very interesting : Duncan details his method of dissecting the brain (i.e. studying its functioning) without cutting it into orizontal slices, as most surgeons do today, notably by injecting wax of different colours into the vessels, a technique used at the beginning of the 16th century by Leonardo da Vinci for his anatomical research and perfected in the following century by Jan Swammedan. A copy in period morocco, a rare condition. It bears the title of this manuscript ex-libris : L. Quirot, former surgeon in the King's army.
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