Plastic incunabula — A tale of Carpue’s Tagliacozzi’s

Abstract

Carpue's An Account of Two Successful Operations caused the rebirth of plastic surgery in 1816 over 200 years after the first plastic surgery book was written by Tagliacozzi. Tagliacozzi's book was pirated with both authorized edition and unauthorized editions having been published in 1597. In his book, Carpue reviewed the literature including Tagliacozzi's work. Carpue had Charles Turner, engraver-in-ordinary to the King prepare his books illustrations. Comparing Turner's engraving with those in the original and pirated editions of Tagliacozzi's book shows that Turner duplicated the pirated edition. The author discovered a pirated edition at St. Bartholomew's Medical College Library in 1971 that was signed by Carpue and shows how by comparing the illustrations in it with those in Carpue's book that this was the working copy used by Turner. In 1819 Carpue gave this book to a "B. Turner Jr." who probably was Turner's teenage son who later became a surgeon. In 2011 the author discovered an authorized version of Tagliacozzi's book signed by Carpue at the Lilly Library in Indiana. These books are important links in the history of plastic surgery.