La Guerison Du Cancer Au Sein [Houppeville, Guillaume De (1644-1726)]

The first edition of this important treatise on breast cancer, the first of its kind. In the book De Houppeville gives an anatomical description of the female breast and offers advice on how to proceed with a mastectomy. De Houppeville worked as a surgeon in the somewhat provincial city of Rouen, and this book appears to have arisen from relative obscurity to become a highly referenced work in the modern history of medicine. Wagener writes in his History of Oncology "Guillaume de Houppeville, a surgeon in Rouen, published an interesting book in 1693 , entitled 'The cure of breast cancer', in which he gave a remarkable defense of mastectomy in cases of cancer. He claimed that the affected breast could be amputated without much pain. The reason he gave for this assertion was that the Amazons spoken of by the ancient Greeks were supposed to have the right breast removed in their youth. He stated that the pain due to the operation was much more bearable than that caused by the chronic cancer, supporting these views with the aid of six studies of cases that had been treated according to this method - including one woman who had been cured for five years." A second edition of the work was published the following year. Uncommon on the market - it has appeared at auction only twice in the past thirty years. 8vo (15 x 9cm), [xvi], 256pp., [xiv]. Includes approbation page, blank leaves, errata, and index. Pagination skips in the middle but is continuous and complete. Bound in contemporary speckled calf. Some wear to spine, edges rubbed. Paper repairs to pages 77/78 and 83/84 with slight loss of text. A lovely copy of a very rare book.