JOBERT DE LAMBALLE Antoine-Joseph Des appareils électriques des poissons électriques.

First edition.

Antoine-Joseph Jobert de Lamballe (1799-1867) was professor of anatomy, personal surgeon of Louis-Philippe and Napoleon III. A pupil of Richerand and Cloquet, he became hospital surgeon in 1829, surgeon at Saint-Louis Hospital in 1830, then professor of anatomy in 1831. He was one of the pioneers of general anesthesia in France using ether, and it is world famous for its use of autoplasty which allows diseased parts to be repaired by surrounding healthy tissue. His research on the nervous system led this great physician to study the electrical devices of electric fish, the results of which he gives here. The work, dedicated to Napoleon III, therefore contains details of his studies on the blood and nervous system.

"The work of anatomy and physiology that I am publishing at the moment is part of this series of studies. Its particular object is the nervous system of certain fish, which, provided with special organic devices, depend on this system, produce extraordinary phenomena, prodigious, so to speak, in the animal kingdom, and quite similar to those which physicists determine by means of the Leyden jar and electric batteries. The anatomy of fish in general gives proof of the correlations which exist between the blood system and the central nervous or cerebrospinal system, as well as of the close dependence in which the manifestations of life are found in relation to these two systems "(introduction).

The plates show details of the electrical apparatus of the torpedo (1), the ray (2-3), the malapterure (4-6), the gymnote (7-9, 11), and a board comparing the electrical apparatus of the torpedo and the gymnotus.

Very good copy, complete.