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Sibly, E. [Ebenezer], and Pass, John (Illustrator].
The Medical Mirror or A Treatise on the Impregnation of the Human Female.
Publisher: Printed for the Proprietor by Lewis and Hamblin, London;
Date of Publication: 1807
Stock Code: 12348
Fifth Edition. Small quarto, pp., 196. Complete with all five plates (detailed in the ‘Directions for placing the Cuts’ at end) comprising a combination of colour-printed and hand-tinted frontispiece, two five-image plates depicting the various stages in the formation of the human foetus, an anatomical diagram of “The Action of Quickening” and ‘The Insensible Perspiration’. Contemporary full tree calf with gilt titles to red label to spine, and gilt fillets. Spine rubbed to edge with minor insect damage to upper joint; boards slightly worn at corners. Front free endpaper crumpled; list of family birth dates inscribed to reverse of frontispiece in ink with associated blotting. A few leaves creased at corner tips; scattered light foxing. An attractive copy in a contemporary binding. Ebenezer Sibly (1751-99) the English physician and occultist, is best known as the author of the “New and Complete Illustration of the Complete Science of Astrology” as well as volumes on natural history and science. Sibly was politically and scientifically eccentric, being both a supporter of American Independence, and a believer in mesmerism and animal magnetism. As editor of Nicholas Culpeper’s ‘English Physician’, Sibly was the intellectual inheritor to Culpeper’s unique combination of medical science, occultism and eroticism, which is apparent in this book. This work is a study of conception and the development of the human foetus, together with notes on various medical complaints based upon cases the Author had personally studied, followed by the principles of life and death and a chapter on the fashionable pursuit of sea-bathing and its health benefits. Sibly’s ODNB article says of this book ‘Sibly's Medical Mirror was another instance of medical popularization, offering an accessible (if rather florid) account of human anatomy and physiology, including the delicate subject of reproduction’. A list of names and dates of birth of the Padgett family of
Leatherby, Yorkshire to the front free endpaper suggest this book may actually have been used in the birthing of children. All early editions of this book are rare, with only one copy of this fifth edition listed on COPAC, at the BL. £3500.00