First edition. xviii, 320, 48pp, with woodcut illustrations in text and numerous black and white plates. Blue cloth-covered boards with black lettering on upper panel and gilt titles on spine. Top edge sprayed blue. 8vo. Cloth a little faded, gently rubbed and rounded at corners and tips of a lightly sunned spine. Some mild toning to text block edges. Internally neat, clean, bright and tight.
Bastion (1837-1915) was a neurologist and physiologist, Professor of Pathology and later of Clinical Medicine at UCL Medical School. An early advocate of the doctrine of archeboiosis (that living matter evolved from non-living organic matter) and a critic of germ theory, he first coined the term biogensis. This is one of his last and best argued written works published a few years before his death in 1915.
