[MEDICINE] WALLACE, William Clay

A Treatise on the Eye. Containing discoveries of the causes of near and far sightedness, and of the affections of the retina, with remarks on the use of medicines as substitutes for spectacles

New York: Samuel Colman, 1839. Second Edition. 12mo (18cm); 88pp; illus. Publisher's paper-covered boards with applied title label; sympathetically re-spined in green morocco, retaining original endpapers. Wood-engraved text illustrations throughout. Mild rubbing to board edges; title label unevenly trimmed, with loss of one character at right margin; a fresh, attractive copy, Very Good or better.

Of Williams, Alvin Hubbell states: "A man who will long be remembered, not for his eminence in the profession, but for a work [the present work] on the comparative anatomy of the eye, and especially of the ciliary muscle of that organ, including its physiology...had Wallace accomopanied his otherwise intelligent experiments with a study of the catoptric images from the surfaces of the lens and noted their curvature-changes, he would undoubtedly have anticipated von Helmholtz by many years and arrived at the correct mechanism of accommodation..." (Hubbell, The Development of Ophthalmology in America 1800 to 1870. Chi:1908).

Price: $250.00

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