An anthology of 16th century writers; a good summary of the surgical knowledge of that period.

Guidi, professor of philosophy and medicine at Pisa, discovered the Vidian nerve, the Vidian canal, and the Vidian artery. The above was edited by his nephew.

The elder Caspar Bartholin was the first to describe the workings of the olfactory nerve, and introduced the terms nervus olfactorius and nervus vagus. This was a standard textbook for many years, undergoing numerous editions. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

First printed mention of the air thermometer, an instrument that played a vital part in the creation of static medicine. This device was similar to Galileo’s open-air thermoscope, of which Santorio may have known, but he was the first to transform the thermoscope into a thermometer by adding a scale with fixed reference points

In 1601 the Rouen physician Duval was summoned by the Rouen parlement to examine Marie Le Marcis, who at the age of 20 had discovered she was a man and had determined to marry, only to be imprisoned for lesbianism and condemned to death. Upon inspection, Duval's medical colleagues concluded that Le Marcis was a woman, but Duval, driven both by curiosity and sympathy, conducted a more intimate examination which, while scandalizing his peers, revealed evidence of a male reproductive organ. Classified by Duval as a 'gynanthrope', Le Marcis was saved, took the name Marin, and lived henceforth as a man. Digital facsimile from BnF Gallica at this link.

Digital facsimile of the 1880 reprint of the 1612 work from the Hathi Trust at this link.

"The Hortus Eystettensis is itself a ‘paper museum’, a pictorial record of the flowers grown in the greatest German garden of its time, that of the Prince Bishop of Eichstätt, Johann Conrad von Gemmingen. As part of a radical building programme at his seat, the Willibaldsburg castle overlooking the river Altmühl, the Prince Bishop created an extensive pleasure garden comprising eight separate gardens, each staffed with its own gardeners and each filled with flowers from a different country, imported through the international centres of Amsterdam, Antwerp and Brussels; the Prince Bishop boasted of having tulips in 500 colours. Painted halls and pleasure rooms further adorned the gardens. The great German botanist, Joachim Camerarius the Younger, advised the Prince Bishop on the garden's early design, and it may have been Camerarius's own manuscript florilegium (sold, Christie's, 20 May 1992, lot 151) which first suggested the creation of a pictorial record of the Eichstätt gardens to the Prince Bishop. After Camerarius's death, a Nuremberg apothecary, Basilius Besler, advised on the gardens, and it was he who undertook immortalising the garden in detailed and delicate engravings for the year-round enjoyment of his patron and for posterity in the Hortus Eystettensis. Flowers were drawn from life with flower boxes sent to Nuremberg so that artists there could work from fresh specimens, with the result that these plant portraits serve both as documentation and pleasure; here is a garden made perennial and evergreen. 

"The first edition was published in two issues: one with descriptive text printed on the verso of each plate and one without the text; in a few copies of the latter issue the text was printed on separate sheets and interleaved with the plates. As Barker observes, the issue without text backing the plates was undoubtedly intended to be coloured by hand; the versos were left blank, to ensure that no shadow of the printed text could detract from the botanical image. It is significant that many of the deluxe copies have no descriptive text at all. The first edition was limited to 300 copies, each of which carried a premium price. While uncoloured copies were available for 35 florins (rising to 48), coloured copies cost 500 florins. Herzog August of Braunschweig exclaimed in disbelief over the price of a coloured copy, but acquired one nonetheless, once he was assured that he had indeed understood the price correctly. 

"Despite much interest in the work and numerous documentary sources, much mystery still surrounds its publication. Neither the printer of the engraved plates nor of the letterpress text has been identified. Barker has tentatively suggested Paul Kauffmann as the printer of the text, with material acquired at Frankfurt through the offices of the printseller and publisher Balthasar Caimox expressly for printing the Hortus Eystettensis ('Who printed the text of the 'Hortus Eystettensis'?, The German Book, Studies presented to David L. Paisey, ed. J.L. Flood and W.A. Kelly, London: 1995, pp185-192). David Paisey has observed that if the watermark is read (as Briquet did) as a pine-cone within an armorial shield, then it may be the arms of Augsburg, which further points to Wolfgang Kilian's shop at Augsburg as responsible for the engravings (cf. Paisey's review of Barker's Hortus Eystettensis, in The Library, 6th series, vol. 17, pp.365-8). The original drawings used in preparing the plates for publication survive at the University of Erlangen, and 328 of the copperplates, long thought to have been melted at the Munich mint c.1820, were rediscovered in the Albertina Graphische Sammlung at Vienna in 1998" (http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/besler-basilius-1561-1629-hortus-eystettensis-nuremberg-1613-6012489-details.aspx,  accessed 9-2017).

 Barker, Hortus Eystettensis, the Bishop's Garden and Besler's Magnificent Book, 2nd ed. London, 1995. Hortus Eystettensis: zur Gechichte eines Gartens und einer Buches (Schriften der Universitätsbibliothek Erlangen-Nürnberg 20), Munich: 1989; The Garden at Eichstätt, The Book of Plants by Basilius Besler. Intro. by Klaus Walter Littger. Cologne, London, etc: [1999]. 

Three large anatomical plates with numerous flaps, in the tradition of fugitive sheets, but larger and more complex. The first edition was issued anonymously without identifying the place of publication or the publisher. The engraver, Stephan Michelspacher, is sometimes identified as the publisher. The first edition was followed by numerous editions in Latin, in German, Dutch, and in English. See Russell, A bibliography of Johann Remmelin the anatomist (1991).

This work, beautifully printed by the Plantin-Moretus Press, includes an engraved title page and illustrations heading each chapter by Peter Paul Rubens. It contains one of the first studies of binocular vision. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

This collection of aphorisms is the work by which Santorio’s ideas became widely known. Santorio used a beam balance to measure metabolism. See also nos. 572.1 & 572.2. For description of his experiments, see No. 2668. English translations by Abdiah Cole (1663), John Davies (1676), and others.

Martin Pansa, a pupil of Georg Agricola, wrote the most important work on occupational disease before Ramazzini. He described the symptoms of the lung diseases of miners and smelters. Digital facsimile from the Bayerische StaatsBibliothek at this link.

One of the first “modern” works on medical ethics. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

First known report of a case of death from hypertrophy of the thymus, in an infant, is reported on p. 172; it is reproduced on p. 239 of J. Ruhräh’s Pediatrics of the past, New York, 1925. Platter first described flexion contracture deformity of the fingers (“Dupuytren’s contracture”) in Liber I, p. 140. On p. 13 he provided the first description of an intracranial tumor —a meningioma. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Digital facsimile from BnF Gallica at this link.

Digital facsimile from BnF Gallica at this link.

Physician to Philip II of Spain, Hernández travelled to Mexico by order of the king, and studied the natural history of the region from 1570-77. His Works, which filled six folio volumes of text and 10 volumes of paintings of animals and plants, were deposited in the library of the Escorial, and in Mexico City, but never published in Hernández’s lifetime. Many of them were lost. A manuscript of this summary in Latin, edited for the king by N. A. de Recchi, found its way to Mexico where it was revised, augmented, translated into Spanish-Aztec, and published by Francisco Ximénez, a friar and nurse at the Convent of San Domingo de Mexico. It was the second printed work on the natural history, plants, and botanic medicines of Mexico issued in the New World. See Nos. 1819.1 & 1821.1. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link. Selections from Hernández's works were published as The Mexican Treasury. The Writings of Dr. Francisco Hernández. Edited by Simon Varey. Translated by Rafael Chabran, Cynthia L. Chamberlin and Simon Varey (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000).

Fabry’s book includes an early description of a field drug chest for army use. He was one of the most eminent surgeons of his time, although not prepared to adopt all the teachings of Paré. He had considerable mechanical ingenuity and devised many pieces of apparatus. English translation, 1674.

As the title page states, the work was a compilation. There were reissues in 1616 and 1618. The second edition (1631) included an engraved title page with the first illustration of a brain dissection. That edition also contained a section translating extracts from Paré's works describing and illustrating 53 surgical instruments this was the first translation of any of Paré's works into English.

One of the earliest classifications of deformities, Liceti’s work was still under review in works on malformation in the 19th century. Includes both real and imaginary cases. The first of many illustrated editions appeared in Padua, 1634. The 1634 edition includes accurate descriptions of cases observed by Liceti in the years following the first edition issued in 1616. Digital facsimile of the 1634 edition from the Internet Archive at this link.

Translated into French as De la nature, des causes, des differences des monstres: D'après Fortunio Liceti. Traduit et résumé par le Dr. François Houssay. Préface du Dr. Louis Ombrédanne. Paris: Ed. Hippocrate, 1937.

Citois described Poitou colic, “colica Pictonum”, in great detail, and it was this description which was responsible for the condition being recognized as a definite syndrome. Partial English translation in No. 2241.

Like Paré, Magati believed that gunshot wounds were not in themselves poisonous. He suggested a bandage moistened with plain water in place of the various salves then in vogue.

Bonifacio’s sign-language for the deaf and dumb employed almost every part of the body for conversational purposes.

Besler was the first to illustrate a natural history Wunderkammer in Germany. The engraved frontispiece  of this work, which Besler published himself, depicts Besler exhibiting the contents to a visitor. The first edition included 24 engraved plates. It was undated, but has been assigned the date of 1616 by most bibliographers. A chronogram date on the title page indicates 1622.

Woodall was the surgeon-general to the East India Company. This was the first textbook for naval surgeons. Woodall, surgeon to Saint Bartholomew's Hospital, was an early advocate of limes and lemons as a preventive measure against scurvy. The second edition (London, 1639) included the first edition of Woodall’s collected works, and an unusual and difficult to read chart of the many drugs that Woodall organized in his surgeon's chest. The enlarged edition was required reading for all naval surgeons in the East India Company. Facsimile reprint of the 1617 edition, with introduction and appendix by John Kirkup (Bath: Kingsmead Press, 1978). Biography by J. H. Appleby, Med. Hist., 1981, 25, 251-68. Digital facsimile of the 1617 edition from The Medical Heritage Library, Internet Archive, at this link.

An extensively illustrated work on death from snake bites and species of venomous snakes instigated by the sudden death from snake bite of an otherwise healthy young man.
Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

The first London pharmacopeia, issued by the (Royal) College of Physicians. The first edition was published on May 7, but contained many typographical errors; a corrected edition appeared on December 7, 1618. In the first issue the name of the publisher was printed “Marriot”. Facsimile reprint of both versions, with introduction by G. Urdang, Madison, 1944.

The first book printed in Mexico with engraved illustrations.

The first book on heart disease. "The recognition of heart disease as of clinical interest and importance was exceedingly slow. In 1618, one hundred and eleven years after the pioneer publication of Benivieni of the postmortems in 111 postmortem examinations, including several of cardiovascular interest, and ten years before Harvey's De motu cordis there appeared a volume...written by Albertini.... Here at last with its imposing title, Albertini's book seemed to give promise in 1618 of something more.... Albertini did, to be sure, recognize the very fast pulse, the very slow pulse...and arrhythmias such as atrial fibrillation although that designation was not, of course, used. Like others, he ascribed palpitation, faintness, and syncope to the heart and recognized reflex effects on the heart's action" (Paul Dudley White, Heart disease, 4th ed., p. 3). Digital facsimile from Google books at this link.

Scheiner, a Jesuit astronomer, was a pioneer in physiological optics. He demonstrated how images fall on the human retina, noting the change in curvature of the lens during accommodation, and devised the pin-hole test (“Scheiner’s test”) to illustrate accommodation and refraction.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link. Peter Lauremberg edited the first edition of this anonymous Byzantine text on anatomy. The first illustrated edition was edited by Johann Stephan Bernard and Daniel Wilhelm Triller, and published as Anonymi Introductio Anatomica.... Leiden: Phillipp Bonk, 1744. Digital facsimile of the 1744 edition from Google Books at this link.