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7.
Crash Injuries. The Integrated Medical Aspects of Automobile Injuries and Deaths.
Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1960. First edition. 8vo. Green boards, with gilt lettering to spine. 1080pp. Illustrated throughout with photographs and diagrams.
A pioneering work on the mechanics of injury to the occupants of cars in road traffic accidents, including studies of experimental and simulated crashes, and details of the types of injury which result from them.
One of JG Ballard’s favourite books, and a major source of inspiration for “Crash” (1973). In a 1985 interview with David Pringle, he explained that it “deals with every conceivable aspect of the automobile crash and its effects on the human passenger… It’s exhaustive in its descriptions of the nightmare interface between the human body and technology at a moment of severe crisis… For me, reading that book and the use I made of it was an example of what I feel the sf writer should be doing. He should be looking at reality in its (excuse the pun) sharpest points of contact with ourselves, rather than relying upon endless fantastications of an already well established set of interplanetary conventions” (Interview with JG Ballard: Psychoanalyst of the Electronic Age).
No dustwrapper; spine slightly leaned; o/w Very Good.