Aur. Corn. Celsi De Medicina Libri Octo

Amstelaedami [Amsterdam]: Joannem Wolters, 1713. Very Good. Amstelaedami [Amsterdam]: Joannem Wolters, 1713. "Edition ultima, auctior & correctior." Small, thick octavo (16cm); full contemporary parchment, manuscript spine titling, dark topstain; [44],574,[24]pp. (collated complete); steel engraved portrait frontispiece and added title page, woodcut initials, head- and tail-pieces. Parchment dust-soiled and unevenly darkened, brief scratches to rear cover, light dampstaining affecting final few leaves, fore-edge of several gatherings mysteriously sliced without affecting text, extensive manuscript notes in a contemporary and a 19th-century hand to front free endpapers; overall Very Good and sound.

Handy edition of the only surviving reference work by the Roman encyclopedist Aulus Cornelius Celsus (ca. 25 BCD - 40 CE). Rediscovered in the 15th century, the eight books of De Medicina were first published in 1478, "the first general text of medicine to come from a printing press" (John G. Simmons, "Doctors and Discoveries" (2002), p. 378).