= Fine and rare second edition of this ground-breaking work on heart diseases. Corvisart (1755-1821) was personal physician to Napoleon and enjoyed a close and loyal relationship with him. Garrison-Morton 2737; Wellcome II, 294; cf. Heirs of Hippocrates 1126 and Norman 518 (1st ed., 1806): "The first edition of Corvisart's treatise on heart diseases was written by C. E. Horeau from notes based upon Corvisart's course of clinical lectures. (...) Corvisart differentiated between cardiac and pulmonary diseases, provided the first adequate classification of the symptoms of heart disease, distinguished between functional and organic disturbances of the heart, and was the first to divide the course of heart failure into three stages. He dealt with the pathology of the pericardial sac and the muscular and fibrous tissues of the heart, gave the first description of carditis, and pointed out the relationship between valvular lesions and the development of heart failure" (Norman). "In this great classic of cardiac literature, Corvisart for the first time so ordered the symptomatology of heart disease that differentiation between cardiac and pulmonary disease was made possible. He distinguished between cardiac hypertrophy and dilatation, he devided the clinical course of cardiac failure into three phases, and he showed the relationship between cause and effect in valvular disease and cardicac failure." (Heirs of Hippocrates 1126).DSB III, p.426ff: 'A long and remarkable study on diseases of the heart constituted his magnum opus and can legitimately be considered the first treatise on cardiology.'