CONJOINED TWINS., RIVILLA BONET Y PUEYO, JOSE DE.

Desvios de la naturaleza: o Tratado de el origen de los monstrous.... Lima: Joseph de Contreras y Alvarado,1695.

RIVILLA BONET Y PUEYO, JOSE DE. Desvios de la naturaleza: o Tratado de el origen de los monstrous.... Lima: Joseph de Contreras y Alvarado,1695.
Small 4to (210 x 148 mm). 1 engraved plate (lacking armorial plate, not found in all copies). Contemporary limp vellum, modern custom cloth box. Vellum heavily wrinkled, covers soiled, browning and spotting throughout, ink ownership inscriptions and marginal annotations.

Rare treatise on conjoined twins, including the record of autopsy of conjoined twins in Lima in 1694. It was prepared at the request of the Viceroy, Melchor Fernandez Portocarrero. The authorship of this work has been the subject of debate, sometimes attributed to the medical scholar Pedro Peralta y Barnuevo, a prominent professor at the University of San Marcos in Lima. Peralta, however, was not the author of the text, but acted more as an editor, bringing the publication of Rivilla's text to fruition. Much of the information is taken from contemporary and anceint medical sources. Lastres ii, p143-145; Medina ii, 675; Morejon p 196; NLM 9739; Palau 270506; Valdizán 20.