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Pp. [453]-60. Original wrappers. Ink stamp "HISTOLOGIE/ Collège de France" on front wrapper. Ink note "Technique/ I x y z" (?by Ranvier) on front wrapper. Very Good. First Edition. INSCRIBED BY SIGMUND FREUD: "Hommage de l'auteur." The recipient was probably Louis Ranvier, who was the histologist at the Collège de France. The offprint of another paper on neurohistology by Freud--with the same ink stamp "HISTOLOGIE/ Collège de France" and with an inscription from Freud to Ranvier ("Monsieur le Professeur Ranvier hommage respectueux de l auteur")--supports the view that Ranvier was the recipient of the offprint offered here. When Freud was in Paris from October 13, 1885-February 28, 1886, he met Ranvier at the Collège de France. Later he saw Ranvier at a dinner party given by Charcot. Freud described that meeting in a letter: "A particularly pleasant event for me was the arrival during the evening of M. Ranvier, the famous histologist, who had given me such a friendly reception in the Collège de France. I think he spoke to Charcot about me, and I myself had a pleasant talk with him later. My confidence as a judge of human nature received a considerable boost when he confided in me that he would have liked best to be a professor in a small German university--for instance, Bonn--for in a letter to Paneth I had described him as a 'German university professor badly translated into French' " (Letters of Sigmund Freud, ed. E. Freud, p. 207). Ranvier was one of only two people (the other being Charcot) who invited Freud to a dinner party while Freud was in Paris (Jones, Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 1, p. 188). Grinstein, Sigmund Freud's Writings 30 (1884d). "Freud's full account of his method of staining nerve tissue with gold chloride. . . . An English version of this paper was published in Brain 7 (1884) pp. 86-89, under the title 'A new histological method for the study of nerve-tracts in the brain and spinal cord' " (Norman F6). "In February [Freud] heard that Weigert had invented a new method for staining nervous tissue, so he hastened to send a 'Preliminary Communication' on his own method to the Centralblatt für die medizinischen Wissenschaften, reserving the full account for Pflüger's Archiv für Anatomie und Physiologie [the full account is offered here]. He also got his friend Fleischl to send a paper to Ferrier in London for publication in Brain. . . . He wrote this one in English, but got an American to correct it. Freud was aware of the special difficulty with all such methods, which he pointed out as follows: 'Innumerable methods have been devised by histologists which proved themselves useful only in the hands of their inventors; that is why I have decided to publish even the pettiest directions.' Freud was himself highly pleased with the success of his method. which gave him 'a wonderfully clear and precise picture' of the cells and fibers. It caused some sensation at the time, and demands at once came in for it to be published in Czech, Italian, and Russian. The results of subsequent trials, however, were more variable; in some hands it produced excellent results, in others more uncertain and therefore unreliable ones. Brücke told him his various new methods alone would bring him fame" (Jones, ibid., Vol. 1, pp. 203-04). Shepherd, Foundations of the Neuron Doctrine (ch. 7, "The Nerve Cell Studies of Freud"). Seller Inventory # 14783
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