DESCRIPTIONS ET USAGES DE PLUSIEURS NOUVEAUX MICROSCOPES by (MICROSCOPY). JOBLOT, LOUIS - 1718

Paris: Chez Jacques Collombat, 1718. FIRST EDITION. 255 x 190 mm. (10 x 7 1/2"). 6 p.l., 78, 96 pp., [3] leaves.
Contemporary speckled sheep, raised bands, spine ornately gilt in compartments featuring scrolled cornerpieces with foliate lozenge centerpiece with crown at apex, surrounded by stars and dots, swirls at corners, maroon morocco label (older repairs to head of spine). Woodcut device on title page, woodcut initials, headpiece, and tailpieces, engraved first page (including fine historiated headpiece and initial), and 34 PLATES SHOWING MICROSCOPES AND MICROSCOPIC OBSERVATIONS after drawings by Joblot. Front pastedown with engraved bookplate with the monogram "L. M. " Title page with small Jesuit library stamp, "Dom. S. Aloys, Cantiliac." Wellcome III, 356; Nissen ZBI 2113; Dolan, "Re-visiting the Ridiculed Rival of Leeuwenhoek: Louis Joblot" in Protist, Vol. 173, No. 3 (June 2022), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.protis.2022.125882; Woodruff, "Louis Joblot and the Protozoa" in The Scientific Monthly Vol. 44, No. 1 (Jan. 1937), pp. 41-47; DSB VII, 110. ◆Joints cracked at head alongside top compartment, lower corners of boards quite worn, minor loss of leather along head edge of front board (apparently from worming), other minor external signs of use, but the original unrestored binding quite solid and still pleasing. Slight soiling to final leaf, otherwise internally clean, fresh, and bright, with excellent impressions of the plates and extremely wide margins.

This is the landmark first treatise on protozoa by the scientist considered by some experts to be the father of microbiology, whose research was significant in developing the theory of the transmission of germs, and in helping to disprove the idea of spontaneous generation. According to Dolan, the work is also "the first treatise that contained both methods for the construction of microscopes and original observations of microorganisms." It was printed in a limited quantity, at the author's expense, with engravings of the drawings he had made of microscopic creatures. In addition to instructions on the building of several types of microscopes, which by his day had become complex (and sometimes ornate) contraptions, the work delineates Joblot's own pioneering observations of protozoa, which he called "fishes" or "caterpillars," or even such whimsical terms as "slipper," "gobbler," or "bagpipes." Their movements fascinated him, and he reported what he saw in rapturous terms: "a dozen 'fishes' differing from each other and so strange to see and observe that I do not think that the entertainment of Comedy, of the Opera with all its magnificence, of rope dancers, acrobats or the animal fights that we can see . . . could be preferred to it." The mathematics professor Joblot (1645-1723) was a contemporary of, but far less well known than, Anton van Leeuwenhoek, the man credited with discovering protozoa. Dolan, in an effort to bring Joblot "out of the shadow of Leeuwenhoek," considers the latter "an 'immortal dilettante' and not the founder of any discipline," pointing out that "Leeuwenhoek's observations were known mainly through the 114 letters published by the Royal Society . . . [which] addressed a large variety of topics. . . . He did not produce a coherent singular work that could be considered as the foundational piece of a field of study." Joblot, on the other hand, "is known for conducting the first experiments on spontaneous generation employing heat sterilization. . . . Joblot's experiments have been used literally as a textbook example of an early experiment in microbiology." A pirated edition of this work, expanded with unauthorized information from Joblot's notes and from other, plagiarized works, appeared in 1754-55, and was widely promoted by its publisher (Briasson), who sought to capitalize on the mid-century craze for microscopy. That later pirated amalgamation achieved a much greater distribution than our first edition and is consequently more commonly encountered today than our original issue..