May 24, 2010
PRINTED 1497: A MEDICAL CASE-BOOK
VERY RARE: One of the Great Renaissance Medical Texts
The Book:
Bartolomeo Montagnana; Jacobus de Vitalibus. Consilia Bartholomei Montagnane : Tractatus tres de balneis Patavinis ; De cop̄ositione & dosi medicinarum ; Antidotarium eiusdem [Venice] : Bonetus Locatellus, for Octavianus Scotus, 2 August 1497. [8], 387, [1] leaves ; 31.5 cm. Later turn of the century binding with loss to spine as depicted. Internally, occasional minor browning, but overall a VERY FINE, WIDE-MARGINED AND COMPLETE COPY. Very Rare on the Market.
Bartolomeo Montagnana, a Doctor of Venetian origin, practiced in Padua as a teacher at the local and prestigious University of Medicine. He was a descendant of a long line of physicians, as well an an anatomist who had dissected as many as fourteen bodies, and thus played a major role in early anatomical investigation.
“A striking feature of clinical medicine in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was the writing of “Consilia” or medical case-books, consisting of clinical records from the practice of well-known physicians and letters of advice written by them to imaginary patients or else to real pupils or country doctors, who appealed to their superior knowledge as consultants.” As personalized medicine, these personal clinical studies differed markedly from the lofty and erudite classics of Hippocrates and Aretsus. The work also has botanical interest, as the preparation of medicine required detailed explanations of the sources of the plants.
[ Ref: Garrison, F.H. An introduction to the history of medicine]
