Brain and Spinal Cord in Situ, Hirschfeld Double Folding Plate, 1866

This antique anatomy print of the brain and spinal cord in situ is an original 1866 hand colored lithograph from Hirschfeld and Leveille's Nevrologie atlas, published in Paris by G. Masson. It is the double plate numbered 1 and 2 in the atlas. As the opening plate, it is printed across a folding sheet. Two full length posterior dissections show the brain lying in the opened cranium and the whole spinal cord in the opened vertebral canal, the muscles of the back turned aside on one figure and the vertebral arches cut away on the other, with the cord and its nerve roots drawn isolated between them.

The plate comes from the atlas to Ludovic Hirschfeld's Nevrologie et Esthesiologie, the second edition of his treatise and iconography of the human nervous system and the organs of sense, published in Paris by G. Masson in 1866. Every figure was drawn from life by J. B. Leveille directly from Hirschfeld's own dissections, printed as a lithograph by Lemercier of the rue de Seine, and colored by hand. Leveille's plates are among the most admired anatomical illustrations of the nineteenth century, exact enough to teach from and drawn with a restraint that keeps them beautiful rather than merely clinical.

For collectors of medical and scientific prints, this antique anatomy print joins precise observation with careful hand color. A single Hirschfeld plate makes a quietly striking picture for a study, library or consulting room, and several plates from the same atlas hang well together as a group.

Double folding plate with its original horizontal folds, as issued. Light age toning, slightly stronger towards the upper right. Edges slightly uneven, with minor handling wear. A few small marks in the margin.

This is an original antique plate, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.