Duodecimo original leather 4 raised bands, spine compartments gilt & gilt spine title (worn with lower half of top hinge split/hinges rubbed & some ends of hinge splits/tips worn/scuffed but quite sound & firm). Engraved titlepage +[26] +388pp +[3]pp index. Small archival repair to margin of TP (no involvement of print), ownership stamp (faint & hard to read) on pastedown and nice ownership inscription of an Avignon medical doctor dated 1676 on flyleaf. *Harvey's fundamental work on embryology and endocrinology which, if he had not discovered the circulation of the blood would alone have ensured his fame. All earlier theories of reproduction were based on Aristotelian and Galenic medicinal teaching but Harvey's researches on chicken and deer embryos proved to his satisfaction that semen fertilized the ovum and that spontaneous generation was without foundation. He also explained growth and differentiation of organs and opposed the doctrine of pre-formation. "The most important book on the subject to appear during the 17th century" (Garrison-Morton. Cf. Krivatsy 7661, Wellcome IV,98).