DUTERTRE P Chirurgie. Traité d’opérations nouvelles, et inventions de mécanique, servant de moyens secondaires pour en assurer le succès.

Waller, 2662; Wellcome, II, 505.

First edition.

The 3-page engraved “Copie de la lettre envoyée a M. le Docteur Dutertre …” bound between pp. [8]-[9].

The first separate illustrated treatise on the orthopaedic treatment of hand injuries and deformities. Prior to the work of William Adams on Dupuytren’s contracture (1879) few, if any, orthopaedic surgeons operated substantially within the hand itself. Instead, like Dutertre, they treated injured and deformed hands externally with braces, splints, etc. In this remarkable but little-known book Dutertre describes braces and splints of his own invention, which are illustrated in the plates. Dutertre is not noticed in the major surgical or orthopaedic references, nor does he appear in Hirsch.

Provenance: Inscribed and signed on the half-title by the author to “Madame Guillotin, et Mr Sograin, son frère, de la part de l’auteur, Dutertre”. Madame Guillotin is in fact the widow of the infamous inventor of the machine that still bears his name.