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Scholarly medical botany for a broad public, Plantin edition with a new chapter

DODOENS (DODONAEUS), Rembert.
Medicinalium observationum exempla rara. Accessere & alia quaedam, quorum elenchum pagina post praefationem exhibet.
Leiden, Christoffel Plantin, 1585. Small 8vo (16 x 10 cm). With Plantin's woodcut compasses device on the title-page. Contemporary reversed parchment (made from the lower part of a leaf from a 16th-century legal document in German, with a reference to Basel). [16], 298, [6] pp.
€ 5,500
Second edition, adding a chapter with an additional case study, and only Plantin edition of an important collection of medical case studies and other medical observations by the great botanist Rembert Dodoens. Dodoens took many from his own medical practice and also edited and annotated examples by his predecessors: Taranta (d. 1418), Benivieni (published 1507) and Cornax (1507-1564). He also added his own hierarchical overview of physiology following Galenus. While several highly regarded scholars published collections of this sort, they are aimed largely at the general public and tend to present bizarre cases that hold the reader's attention. By writing in Latin Dodoens brought his book to an international educated public. Such works also try to demonstrate the value of classical Galenic medical theories, while using new observations to correct and expand them in areas where they had proved weak. This helped defend the status of the medical academic in a world where many healers practiced without academic training, whether experienced herbalists or outright charlatans.
With contemporary owner's inscriptions. A few quires slightly browned, but the book is still in very good condition. The binding shows a few stains and most of the ties are lost, but it is still good. BMN I, p. 184; Durling 1180; Voet 1094; USTC 422345; cf. Wellcome 1822.
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Early printing & manuscripts  >  Medicine & Pharmacy
Medicine & pharmacy  >  Medicine & Pharmacy pre 1700