De Medicina

Amsterdam: Johann Wolters, 1687. LATER EDITION. Etched frontispiece and portrait, full-page etched plate of medical instruments, half-page etched plate of a spinal disc. Contemporary stiff vellum, manuscript spine title, red edges. Contemporary and later manuscript notes and concordances throughout. A very good copy. The oldest western text on medicine after the Hippocratic corpus containing all the medical knowledge of ancient Rome. It was the first printed medical book, originally published in 1478 from an incomplete Greek manuscript. This revision and expansion by Theodoor Janson van Almeloveen (1657-1712) of an edition of 1657 contains a biography of Celsus as well as a three-page bibliography of the editions of Celsus to 1687. Divided into eight books, it covers diet, hygiene, disease and treatment, anatomy, pharmacology, skin diseases, surgery, and bone setting. It includes the first accurate description of the preparation of opium and the first discussion on electrotherapy (using torpedo fish) for headaches and nervous disorders.

Heirs of Hippocrates, 23; Krivatsy, 2335; Osler, 295; Wellcome, II, p. 318.