Recherches et Considérations médicales sur les Vétemens des hommes, particulièrement sur les Culotes. Seconde Édition, Augmentée de Notes critiques, historiques, et ornée de Gravures. Par L. J. Clairian, Médecin.
Paris: De l’Imprimerie d’Aubry, Salle neuve des Marchand, au Palais de Justice, 1803. n contemporary cardboard, gilt spine. Ex libris of François Xavier Borluut de Noortdonck and Pierre Bergé on front pastedown and free endpaper. [9] viii–xiv 92 p. and 4 unnumbered engraved plates. Notes in pencil on pastedown. Binding very slightly rubbed at the extremities. Bumped corners. Occasional foxing. Otherwise in fine condition.
First illustrated edition of this scarce medical thesis on culottes.
The discussion of fashion as a matter of health was opened by the authors of the Enlightenment who saw the dress of their time as a danger to the body and health and advocated a more natural approach to the clothing especially for women and children suffering from the corset and swaddling. Physicians who participated in the public debate went further and claimed that not only the health of the individual was at risk, but even the survival of the human race by the harms that cloth can cause to the body, like the corset to a mother’s breast, or the tight pants to a man’s reproductive organs. (McNeil, 2021)
In the present work Clairian, a Parisian physician calls to free men from the pressure of the fitted and fashionable culottes, which threatens to corrupt their semen (Roche-Birrell, 1994), and also states that a tight breeches could cause inguinal hernia (Adelon-Chaumeton, 1812). Clairian propagates the use of men’s kilt, based on the reports of travelers who claimed that “those peoples who do not wear culottes, have more developed reproductive organs than those who use them, just as the bakers of Paris” (p. 41).
Our copy is an enlarged second edition of Clairian’s treatise, published in the same year as the first, illustrated with four engraved plates of different pants showing details of their cuts. The text is annotated with exhaustive explanations and details about the history of the pants, thus this edition is doubled in length compared to the previous unillustrated one.
Provenance: Bookplate of François Xavier Borluut de Noortdonck (1771–1857) a Flemish book collector, whose collection was sold in 1858 (see: Catalogue des Livres, Manuscrits, Dessins et Estampes, formant le Cabinet de feu M. Borluut de Noortdonck. [Ghent, 1858]; lot no. 555.). Pencil note: Bibliotheque de Vinck de Deux-Orp (Eugène; 1824–1888 or Carl de Vinck de Deux-Orp; 1859–1931). Bookplate of Pierre Bergé (1930–2017)
Literature: Adelon, Nicolas P, and François P. Chaumeton: Dictionaire Des Sciences Médicales: 3. Paris: Panckoucke, 1812. p. 346.; Alard, Marie J. L. J. F. A, Nicolas P. Adelon, François V. Mérat, and C L. F. Panckoucke. Dictionaire Des Sciences Médicales. Paris: C.L.F. Panckoucke, 1812.; McNeil, Peter. A Cultural History of Dress and Fashion: In the Age of Enlightenment, 2021. p. 80.; Roche, Daniel, and Jean Birrell. The Culture of Clothing: Dress and Fashion in the 'ancien Régime'. Cambridge: University Press, 1994. p. 466.
Price: €3,200.00