Joseph Charles Gilles de La Tourette L'Hygiene moderne ou l'art de vivre en sante et de prolonger la vie, Loudun, 1787

Two volume treatise on diet and regimen evidently prepared for publication but never published. Both volumes contain contain numerous crossings out, corrections and inserts. Both include hand drawn frontispieces.

Volume one includes an index at the end, and is set out as though ready for publication, with few corrections to be made. Volume two on the other hand, is much more of a work in progress. Chapters are jumbled up, and there are pages entirely crossed out.

1787

2 Volumes

Purchased from Andrew Hunter Rare Books, November 2007.

Joseph Charles Gilles de la Tourette was a surgeon and member of the Académie des Sciences, Belles-Lettres et Arts de Lyon who practiced in Loudun in the late eighteenth century. Little is known about him except that when he married in 1778 he was already a master surgeon, and he taught midwifery in Loudon and the surrounding towns and villages. It has been suggested that he was the grandfather of the famous neurologist Georges Gilles de la Tourette, who apparently told his students that he was the grandson of a prominent Loudun doctor, but this has not been confirmed.

At Wellcome Collection: L'art des accouchemens, propre aux instructions élémentaires de éleves en chirurgie, etc by Joseph Charles Gilles de la Tourette, Paris, 1797.

Spellings used in this catalogue are those used in the volumes themselves.