Item #5535 Restauration complete du nez, d’après la méthode de M. Dieffenbach. F. VERHAEGHE.
Restauration complete du nez, d’après la méthode de M. Dieffenbach.
Restauration complete du nez, d’après la méthode de M. Dieffenbach.
EARLY PLASTIC SURGERY
PERFORMED BY THE FOUNDER OF PLASTIC SURGERY
DEDICATION COPY
OF AN ILLUSTRATED CASE STUDY
[Brussels], [Journal de la Société des sciences médicales et naturelles de Bruxelles], [1846]

Restauration complete du nez, d’après la méthode de M. Dieffenbach.

8vo. [20.6 x 13.4 cm], pp. 1-7, p. 8 (blank), (2) ff. of lithograph plates. Bound in modern burgundy diced pasteboards, gilt title label laid to spine, retains original blue paper front wrapper. Very minor rubbing to board edges. Final text leaf a bit toned, otherwise internally very well preserved.

Rare dedication copy of an early illustrated offprint on plastic surgery. This study by Dr. Verhaeghe of Ostend describes a rhinoplasty operation carried out in July of 1845 or 1846 by the renowned Berlin physician Johann Friederich Dieffenbach (1792-1847), who was then in residence at Ostend. Dieffenbach, whose maxillofacial and rhinoplastic surgery techniques are considered to be the foundation of modern reconstructive surgery, used a segment of skin from the patient’s forehead to reshape his nose. Lithograph illustrations here show the patient before the operation, and at 3 days, 20 days, and 3 months after the surgery.

The present volume carries on its front wrapper a dedication inscription by Verhaeghe in which he pays ‘hommage’ to a Professor Récamier, likely the celebrated Paris gynecologist Joseph Récamier (1774-1852). Récamier would have known Verhaeghe and Dieffenbach not only from their important collaboration on strabismus (crossed-eye) operations, but also from their work in gynecology (ruptured female perinea).


* J. S. Davis, Plastic Surgery: Its Principles and Practice, p. 11; Bulletin de l’Académie royal de medicine de Belgique, vol. 12, p. 574; Neue Deutsche Biographie, vol. 3, pp. 641-3; S. M. Lamb, “Johann Friedrich Dieffenbacj: The Many-Sided Odysseus,” Arch. Facial. Plast. Surg. (2003), vol. 5, no. 3., pp. 276-77.

Price: $1,250.00

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