LARREY (Dominique-Jean). Mémoires de chirurgie militaire, et campagnes. Paris : J. Smith, 1812-1817. -4 volumes in-8, red half-chagrin, smooth spine decorated, untrimmed (modern binding). Tulard, 849. First edition of the important memoirs of Dominique-Jean Larrey (1766-1842), the most famous surgeon of the Grande Armée and "the most virtuous man I have known", as the emperor wrote in his will. These memoirs contain not only a historical account of Napoleon's campaigns, but above all an exposé of everything to do with the practice of military surgery. The author's aim was above all to contribute to the instruction of young surgeons, and to this end he did not hesitate to place before their eyes "the spectacle of the dangers to which the surgeons of the armies were exposed, that of their successes, and the encouragement they received" (p. vj, tome 1). The first 3 volumes, published in 1812, present Larrey's work from the start of his surgical career to the end of 1811. They cover campaigns in North America, the Rhine, Corsica, Alpes-Maritimes and Catalonia, Italy, Egypt and Syria, Boulogne, Ulm and Austerlitz, Saxony, Prussia, Poland, Spain and Austria. There are also 2 memoirs, one on amputations, the other on hydrocele, followed by some thoughts on the operation of fistula in the anus. The 4th volume was published in 1817. It is devoted to the Russian campaign of 1812, the retreat from the Saxony campaign in 1813 and the French campaign of 1813-1814. It is completed by two memoirs, the first on bladder wounds and certain foreign bodies remaining in this viscera, the second on the "advantages of the current cautery, And especially on those of Moxa in the treatment of Rachialgia, Femorocoxalgia, etc." The entire edition includes a plan and 16 plates, some of which depict ambulances and stretchers designed by Larrey. Copy from the library of the medical doctor L. Jallat (1792-1864), with his signature on the original endpapers of the first 3 volumes. - Attached, in uniform binding, is the 1984 reprint of the fifth volume, originally published in 1841 under the title "Relation de campagnes et voyages de 1815 à 1840". Spines slightly faded. The first 4 volumes are foxed.