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Novus et genuinus hominis brutique animalis exortus.

Middleburg: ex officina Francisci Kroock, 1661.

Collation: 12mo: [section mark]¹² A–M¹² *⁸, 164 leaves, pp. [24] 288 [16] (last 4 pages, *7,8, blank)
Condition: 125 x 70mm.
Binding: Contemporary vellum boards, yapp fore edges.
Provenance: Signature Sam. Merrimar on title; two lines of shorthand on free endleaf.
References: Wellcome II, p. 357; Krivatsy 3746.
Price: £850

First (only) edition.

¶ A rare book which seems to have played a part – if a small one – in the contemporary debates about Embryology. Everaerts quotes extensively from Harvey’s De generatione animalium (1651) and in his preface states that his own experiments confirm and enlarge Harvey’s findings. Joseph Needham notes that Everaerts refuted theories of the Englishman Walter Needham, and was quoted by another Englishman, John Mayow; he also notes Everaert’s speculations on the origins of life and his belief that the umbilical cord was not necessary to the foetus.

Literature: Joseph Needham, A history of embryology, (2nd ed., 1959) pp. 160, 169, 172 and 180.