Stuttgart, Ophthalmologorum Societas, 1891. Oblong folio (32.2 x 39.7 cm). [iv], 91 pp.; eight plates (seven in colour; one intentionally double); explanatory leaf loosely inserted. Quarter cloth over pictorial boards.

Rare edition of a very scarce publication. Usually found in the Hamburg and Leipzig Leopold Voss edition; this copy, however, a Stuttgart imprint. The German physicist and physician Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (1821-1894) "...made significant contributions in several scientific fields. The largest German association of research institutions, the Helmholtz Association, is named after him. In physiology and psychology, he is known for his mathematics of the eye, theories of vision, ideas on the visual perception of space, color vision research, and on the sensation of tone, perception of sound, and empiricism in the physiology of perception. In physics, he is known for his theories on the conservation of energy, work in electrodynamics, chemical thermodynamics, and on a mechanical foundation of thermodynamics. As a philosopher, he is known for his philosophy of science, ideas on the relation between the laws of perception and the laws of nature, the science of aesthetics, and ideas on the civilizing power of science."(Wikipedia). It contains 18 scholarly papers on ophthalmological subjects, written in German (8), English (4), French (5), and Italian (1). It must have been for his contributions to the knowledge of eyes and vision that this special edition was made on behalf of the German ophthalmological society, which resided in Stuttgart. It contains two special pages with congratulations to Von Helmholtz - in Latin - by the society's senior member, the German physician Carl Wilhelm von Zehender (1819-1916). A second, loose plate VIII added. Minimal shelf wear to board edges. A few, faint spots on the last plate, otherwise internally clean. An excellent copy.