| Hear This | Carlisle Isley, BFA
Fall 2022 Practicum Student
 Hi, everyone in the John Martin Rare Book Room Community – My name is Carlisle Isley and I am the library school practicum student this year. I have been charged with writing the December newsletter. The book I have chosen this month is A treatise of the organ of hearing: containing the structure, the uses and the disease of all the ear, written by Joseph Du Verney. [Bone up on your 17th-century French, everyone, because we also have the original French edition - Ed.]
I chose this book because I have always been fascinated with how the ear, nose, and throat, seemingly small parts of the human body, are connected and can impact our daily quality of life. Interestingly enough, we can thank Sam Baker, a bookseller from the 1700s with a bookshop in London, for A treatise…
Mr. Baker commissioned Du Verney's work to sell in his shop down the street from the Angel and Crown ale house in Covent Garden. Baker eventually transformed his bookshop into an auction house for books and manuscripts. Upon his death, he bequeathed his share of the auction house to his nephew, John Sotheby, who would lend his name to the now world-famous Sotheby's auction house. See below for more on this month's book.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Damien for allowing me to join this community for the semester. My practicum in the John Martin Rare Book Room has allowed me to develop knowledge and skills that I can take with me to my next opportunity!
Happy Holidays and happy reading!
Hours
The Room is available Monday-Thursday, 8:30-5:00 (U.S. Central) and Friday by appointment. Face masks are welcome and available for free to all visitors. To guarantee the Room is available, please contact me at damien-ihrig@uiowa.edu or 319-335-9154. | | 
All times are Central
 December 14 at 7:00 pm – Iowa Bibliophiles
Salisbury House Library at Grinnell College: Collection History, Present, and Next Chapter
Zoom
Laura Michelson, MA
Project Archivist, Salisbury House Collection
Grinnell College Special Collections
Chris Jones, MLIS
Special Collections Librarian and Archivist of the College
Grinnell College
Join us for a virtual Iowa Bibliophiles and an introduction to the Salisbury House Library Collection at Grinnell College. Learn more about this unique Iowa collection and its original home in a 1920s Des Moines estate, a 2019 move to Grinnell, current projects, and the chapter ahead with librarians Chris Jones and Laura Michelson. Meet some of the ‘greatest hits’ and favorites from the stacks and find out more about collection holdings, projects ahead, and visiting Grinnell to see more.
This event is free and open to everyone. This event will be virtual. There will be time after the talk for a Q&A. For questions, please contact Elizabeth Riordan at elizabeth-riordan@uiowa.edu.
 RECORDING NOW AVAILABLE: The John Martin Rare Book Room Presents
Mental Health and the Weight of the Past: How Early Modern Physicians Read Greek Psychology
Jonathan Reeder, PhD
Visiting Assistant Professor
Classics Department, University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Recording is now available on the Iowa Digital Library
| | | | DU VERNEY, JOSEPH (1648-1730). A treatise of the organ of hearing: containing the structure, the uses, and the diseases of all the parts of the ear. Translated from the French by John Marshall. Printed in London for Samuel Baker, 1737. 145 pages. 19 cm tall.
Joseph Du Verney was an anatomical lecturer and dissection demonstrator at Jardin Du Roi, an early medical plant garden. During the reign of King Louis XIV, theatrical anatomy was performed in public spaces, but bodies could be hard to come by. Body snatching and grave robbing were common. Society was not yet comfortable with donating bodies to science.
Du Verney, with his "dramatic, rhetorical and anatomical skills," drew crowds of people as if he were a modern-day celebrity. It was also common to have amphitheaters where students could observe dissections. Du Verney conducted lectures and dissections for the Paris Academy of Science, including for the heir apparent to the French throne and royal courtiers. He also lectured to medical students at the Hôtel-Dieu hospital.
Du Verney corrected beliefs that the Eustachian tube was an avenue for breathing or hearing by showing it was a channel through which air is renewed to the tympanic cavity. He explained the mechanism of bone conduction and gave an accurate account of the bony labyrinth. He greatly advanced knowledge in the physiology of hearing with his theory of hearing and communication. His theories helped inform the work of the 19th-century biophysicist and inventor Herman Ludwig Ferdinand Von Helmholtz, who was the first to measure the speed of a nerve impulse.
A treatise of the organ of hearing is bound in soft dark brown leather. The spine of this 300-year-old
| | | book has decayed from use and time. The book would have been portable enough that the owner could take it with them to use for reference.
Heavy use over the years has caused the book to split into four fragile pieces. The loose cover is a paper board covered in dark brown leather with crisscross scratches.
The second section starts at the title page and ends at page 44. On the left side of the pages, the reader can see the remnants of the thread, glue, and board that were used for the spine. The next loose section starts on page 45 with Plate XI, which illustrates "Ten pair of nerves, which proceed from the Medulla Oblongata" and ends on page 72. On the last section of the text block, the reader sees the title embossed on the crumbling dark leather.
The back cover is held on by the endpapers covering the inside of the back cover. If patrons are not careful, the book could sustain more damage. To help support the book on the shelf, staff from UI Libraries Conservation and Collections Care housed the book in a box enclosure.
Prior to the book joining the John Martin Rare Book Room, it circulated in the main collection as part of the Hardin Library. During its time in the Hardin Collection, the book was heavily used and at some point, one illustration "went missing." When I was paging through the book, I discovered a photocopied page was inserted to replace the missing illustration. More than likely, library staff realized the illustration was missing and contacted another institution to request a photocopy from their copy of the text.
Contact Damien Ihrig to view this book or any others from this or past newsletters: damien-ihrig@uiowa.edu or 319-335-9154 to arrange a visit in person or over Zoom. | | | |
