Why it matters

Orfila's Traité des poisons, issued in two volumes in 1814–15, is the founding systematic treatise of experimental toxicology, and he is routinely described in the medical-history literature as the founder of modern toxicology. He set out to classify every known poison by its source (mineral, vegetable, animal), its symptoms, its antidotes and, crucially, how to find it in a body. His animal experiments were exhaustive. Two decades later Orfila was in the witness box at the sensational Lafarge arsenic trial of 1840. Every courtroom poisoning case since owes him something. This 1818 Crochard printing is the revised and enlarged second edition of that work, issued while Orfila was establishing himself in Paris.

Why we're looking

EUR 200 (about 228 USD) for a complete two-volume set in contemporary half calf sits below the comps we actually found: a single odd volume of this same 1818 edition, in noticeably rougher condition, is listed at EUR 155 by Le-Livre on AbeBooks.fr, and a complete set of the later 1826 third edition in contemporary half basane is EUR 428 on Livre Rare Book. That makes this ask (the price of a nice dinner in Paris) look modest for a cornerstone text of forensic toxicology,

Watch out for

The seller notes only lightly faded spines and gives no comment on foxing, joints, or internal condition, so ask for a condition report and images of both spines and the plate. Plate complement is worth confirming directly: this listing accounts for a single plate in vol. 1, while a viaLibri record for an 1818 second-edition set describes it as two volumes "compl. (+ Atlas)" — we could not establish from the sources checked what the standard plate complement for this edition is, so treat that as a question for the seller rather than a defect.