Hildegard, Theodorus Priscianus, Albucasis, Strassburg, 1532-1533, contemporary stamped calf

HILDEGARD OF BINGEN AND ALBUCASIS

Two works containing medical treatises by Hildegard, Theodorus Priscianus, Abu Al-Qasim [Albucasis], Oribasius and others, comprising:

Physica s. Hildegardis. Elementorum, fluminum naturas et operationes. IIII. Libris posteritati tradens. Oribasii medici de simplicibus libri quinque. Theodori physici dieta. Esculapii liber unus, de morborum, infirmitatum... Strassburg: Johann Schott, 1533, woodcut illustrations

[Theodorus Priscianus] Rerum medicarum lib. quatuor... Albucasis... lib. tres I. de cauterio cum igne... II. De sectione & perforatione... III. De restauratione & curatione dislocationis membrorum. Strassburg: Johann Schott, (26 February) 1532, title within woodcut border, woodcut illustrations (some full-page)

2 works in one volume, folio (312 x 204mm.), contemporary blind-stamped calf over wooden boards, two clasps, front flyleaf with watermark of an F in a crowned shield [Briquet 8160, dated 1520s, Metz], first quire and front flyleaf detached, lacking spine covering and both straps, upper cover stained, calf rubbed

A compilation of early medical treatises, including the first printing of Hildegard of Bingen's treatise on natural history and medical treatments (written in the mid twelfth century). Alongside this the printer, Schott, included other medical works with various misattributions, including Apuleius on plants (attributed to Oribasius), extracts from Dioscorides, and sections from a fifth-century work by Caelius Aurelianus (attributed to Aesculapius).

The second part of this volume contains the first printing of the medical writings of Theodorus Priscianus (though attributed on the title-page to Octavius Horatianus), a fourth-century physician in Constantinople, together with three sections on surgery from Abu Al-Qasim's encyclopaedic and influential Method of Medicine, written in the late tenth century, relating to cauterisation, phlebotomy and orthopaedics, with numerous illustrations of surgical devices, amputations and other medical procedures. The Latin text of Al-Qasim on surgery (translated by Gerardus Cremonensis in Toledo) was first printed in 1497 and then 1500, and the present edition follows the illustrations from the 1500 edition; some of the blocks were previously used by Schott in his edition of Gersdorff, Feldtbüch der Wundtartzney (1517).