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an old handwritten letter from a man who is sitting in front of a windowa close up of a piece of paper with handwriting on itan old book with a black and white title on itan old medical brochure of lavender and lavender medicalsix old papers are stacked on top of each other on a white surfacean open book with three pages on top of it on a white surfacesix books are stacked on top of each other on a white surfacetwo books on a white background with a red and black titlean open book with some writing on it sitting on top of a table
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165 - Auguste Lumière (1862–1954), engineer, industrialist, biolog…
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Estimate €1,000 - €2,000
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Description
Auguste Lumière (1862–1954), engineer, industrialist, biologist, pioneer of humoral medicine, illusionist and, together with his brother Louis Lumière, co-inventor of the Cinématographe A collection of correspondence, typescripts and 15 publications FIND THE FULL AND DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THIS LOT IN OUR ONLINE AUCTION CATALOGUE Autograph letter, Lyon, 22 November 1943 My dear Mr Benjamin and friend, I am utterly flustered to see a man of letters of your stature taking an interest in my wretched old frame! Certainly, I would be very pleased to welcome you on 3 and 4 December, and I shall remain entirely at your disposal during your stay in Lyon; but my morning on Friday the 3rd will be devoted solely to our patients at the clinic; carrying out my usual duties with them will not, however, prevent me from spending time with you if you so wish (...) As for my friend Léon Bérard (...) I shall enquire as to whether he is coming to Lyon, so as to fulfil your wish; he spends most of his time in Hyères, where he is establishing an admirable project to which he is deeply attached and which is causing him great concern in the current difficult situation. (...) I have just suffered the great sorrow of losing my dear Paul Vigne, my colleague whose incomparable dedication never wavered for over 40 years!! What painful sorrow it is for a man growing very old to see those he has loved slip away in this way!... Typewritten copy of the letter, dated 26 December 1941, 3 pp. in-4, addressed to the presenter of Radio-Santé in Vichy; a vehement attack on the regime’s official medical authorities who advocate the prevention of the spread of tuberculosis. To counter the accusation that he is not a doctor (‘without a degree’), he brandishes his past institutional honours (the Academy of Medicine, the Academy of Sciences) and overwhelms his interlocutor with colossal figures: 30 books, 760 scientific papers, ‘thousands of patients’ cured and ‘multiple universal medicines’. Against the backdrop of the tuberculosis debate, Lumière persists in his dogma of heredity, labelling official doctors ‘conformists’, ‘sectarians’ and ‘Gravediggers of Progress’, and goes so far as to call them ‘the executioners of consumptives’. He claims to ask for nothing because he has the support of the ‘real’ people (practitioners on the ground and the patients) and compares himself to the greatest misunderstood geniuses in history, quoting a tragic quatrain on the ‘formidable weight of Immortality’. He identifies himself with a giant buckling under the burden of his own greatness. He concludes with a trite tirade from a ‘poilu’ of the 1914–18 war: ‘No one has ever been able to stop a little dog from peeing against a cathedral.’ Excerpts from the letters of some cured patients, typewritten copy, 76 pp., in-4, comprising excerpts from over 300 letters received by Auguste Lumière thanking him and attesting to the effectiveness of his method against tuberculosis. A collection of 15 publications, some with signed autograph dedications Slogans of Medicine Lyon, Léon Suzanne, 1941 First edition 22.5 x 14 cm, paperback Signed autograph dedication The Gravediggers of Progress The Mandarins versus the Pioneers of Science Lyon, Léon Suzanne, 1942 First edition Paperback, 22.5 x 14 cm Signed autograph copy Some Supplementary Studies on the Spread of Tuberculosis 6th, 7th and 8th instalments (3 vols.) Lyon, Léon Suzanne, 1938, 1939 and 1940 Paperback, 21.5 x 13.5 cm A note on the titles and works of Auguste Lumière Lyon, Léon Suzanne, 1935 Paperback, 27 x 22 cm Signed autograph copy List of the main scientific works published by Auguste Lumière 1887–1940 Lyon, Léon Suzanne, 1940 Paperback, 27 x 20 cm Some reviews of Auguste Lumière’s book Tuberculosis, Heredity and Contagion 6 instalments, nos. 1 to 6 354 pp. in total Paperback, 27 x 22 cm L’Avenir médical, a monthly journal Lyon, January and February 1943, Nos. 1 and 2, containing two articles by Auguste Lumière, including Our Campaign Against Contagionism: Its History and Results Stapled, 26 x 18 cm Paul Vigne The Hard-Working and Fruitful Life of Auguste Lumière Lyon, Durand-Girard, 1942 Paperback, 27 x 22 cm FIND THE FULL AND DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THIS LOT IN OUR ONLINE AUCTION CATALOGUE
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About the sale René Benjamin, the 20th-century Balzac scholar
Auction location
Auction time 10/06/2026 at 2:00 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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