STARR, M[oses] Allen

Atlas of nerve cells. New York Macmillan & Co. 1896

Folio x, 78 pp. (pages 51-52 m With 53 photographic plates and 13 text diagrams. An additional folding plate from another work mysteriously bound in. Contemporary black cloth; some light and sporadic spotting (mostly marginal), but generally an excellent, clean copy. Ex-library (West Virginia University); ownership inscription on flyleaf, "From the library of W.W. Deatrick presented by E.P. Deatrick 1931." $900.00

First edition of this important and ambitious work on neurology, particularly for its early use of photographic plates, which liberally illustrate the book. It was primarily intended to present photographs of cells in the central nervous system (using Golgi and Nissl's new techniques) for American students and teachers. A literature review of 1896 in The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, exclaimed, "The Columbia Press, in undertaking the publication of such a work, in so magnificent and expensive a style, is deserving of the highest praise. It is not only a beautiful specimen of bookmaking, but a monument of admirable and elaborate scientific work."

Starr (1854-1932) was an eminent and pioneering American neurologist. In 1893 he authored the first American text on neurosurgery, Familiar Forms of Nervous Disease.

E[ugene] P. Deatrick (b. 1889) was the head of the Soils Department at West Virginia University. He focused much of his studies on salt, an interest in which was stimulated by a sermon (given by his father, Dr. W.W. Deatrick) on the substance's biblical significance.

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