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Highlights from the Royal Society of Medicine
MESUE, Johannes, the younger (ps.? MASAWAIH-al-MARDINI, fl. 10th century?)
Opera medicinalia. - Petrus de ABANO. Additiones ad practicam. [Padua: Laurentius Canozius de Lendenaria], 9 June 1471.
Details
MESUE, Johannes, the younger (ps.? MASAWAIH-al-MARDINI, fl. 10th century?)
Opera medicinalia. - Petrus de ABANO. Additiones ad practicam. [Padua: Laurentius Canozius de Lendenaria], 9 June 1471.
Second edition of an influential corpus of pharmacological works – among the first to be printed – by the ‘Divine Mesue, Prince of Medicine’. It circulated under the name of the 9⁄10th-century Syrian physician, anglicised to Mesue the younger, but is now thought to have originated in the 13th century, possibly in Italy. The works combine ancient knowledge with contemporary Islamic medical innovations in medicinal botany and distillation, and thus functioned as a major conduit of Arabic knowledge into the Latin-speaking world. The corpus consists of 3 works: one on purgatives; one an apothecary’s manual that became the ‘the most popular handbook of drugs in medieval Europe’ (Heirs); and the third on special therapeutics. ‘These works […] had an enormous impact on the development of pharmacy in early modern Europe’ (Vos, p.669). Once published in 1471 (the first edition preceded this second by only a few weeks), editions and commentaries in the 15th century alone outnumbered those of Pliny and Ptolemy. See Paula De Vos, ‘The Prince of Medicine: Yuhanna ibn Masawayh and the foundations of the Western pharmaceutical tradition,’ in Isis 104 (2013), pp. 667-712. Many copies are heavily imperfect, leading to conflicting collations; the present copy collates as the Rylands copy. Only one, imperfect, copy in the USA (Yale Medical Library); not in the Bavarian State Library. HC 11107; Klebs 680.2; Osler(IM) 10; CIBN M-321; IGI 6383; BMC VI 615; Goff M-509; ISTC im00509000.
Median folio (327 x 229mm). Collation: [a-u10 x4 y10 z8 A8 B6, with blank k9-10, x4, B5-6]. 233 leaves (of 236, lacking b2,5 and m5), with all blanks present. Contemporary north-Italian illumination, major initials in gold with white-vine decoration, other initials and paragraph marks alternately red or blue, contemporary foliation (first 3 leaves defective, a few leaves repaired at inner margin, stained, occasional small wormholes/-tracks). Modern calf, evidence of old quire guards, contemporary endleaves preserved, the one at the front a vellum leaf of a treatise on taste, the 3 leaves at the end (starting on the 2 blank leaves of the edition and continuing onto a vellum leaf) on diseases and illness, drawing on Constantinus Africanus. Provenance: early annotations in several hands, the main annotator showing deep engagement with the text – Albert John Chalmers (British colonial physician and pioneer in tropical medicine research, 1870-1920; bookplate and plate recording bequest from Mrs Chalmers in the year of his death, to:) – Royal Society of Medicine (ink stamp on flyleaf).
Opera medicinalia. - Petrus de ABANO. Additiones ad practicam. [Padua: Laurentius Canozius de Lendenaria], 9 June 1471.
Second edition of an influential corpus of pharmacological works – among the first to be printed – by the ‘Divine Mesue, Prince of Medicine’. It circulated under the name of the 9⁄10th-century Syrian physician, anglicised to Mesue the younger, but is now thought to have originated in the 13th century, possibly in Italy. The works combine ancient knowledge with contemporary Islamic medical innovations in medicinal botany and distillation, and thus functioned as a major conduit of Arabic knowledge into the Latin-speaking world. The corpus consists of 3 works: one on purgatives; one an apothecary’s manual that became the ‘the most popular handbook of drugs in medieval Europe’ (Heirs); and the third on special therapeutics. ‘These works […] had an enormous impact on the development of pharmacy in early modern Europe’ (Vos, p.669). Once published in 1471 (the first edition preceded this second by only a few weeks), editions and commentaries in the 15th century alone outnumbered those of Pliny and Ptolemy. See Paula De Vos, ‘The Prince of Medicine: Yuhanna ibn Masawayh and the foundations of the Western pharmaceutical tradition,’ in Isis 104 (2013), pp. 667-712. Many copies are heavily imperfect, leading to conflicting collations; the present copy collates as the Rylands copy. Only one, imperfect, copy in the USA (Yale Medical Library); not in the Bavarian State Library. HC 11107; Klebs 680.2; Osler(IM) 10; CIBN M-321; IGI 6383; BMC VI 615; Goff M-509; ISTC im00509000.
Median folio (327 x 229mm). Collation: [a-u10 x4 y10 z8 A8 B6, with blank k9-10, x4, B5-6]. 233 leaves (of 236, lacking b2,5 and m5), with all blanks present. Contemporary north-Italian illumination, major initials in gold with white-vine decoration, other initials and paragraph marks alternately red or blue, contemporary foliation (first 3 leaves defective, a few leaves repaired at inner margin, stained, occasional small wormholes/-tracks). Modern calf, evidence of old quire guards, contemporary endleaves preserved, the one at the front a vellum leaf of a treatise on taste, the 3 leaves at the end (starting on the 2 blank leaves of the edition and continuing onto a vellum leaf) on diseases and illness, drawing on Constantinus Africanus. Provenance: early annotations in several hands, the main annotator showing deep engagement with the text – Albert John Chalmers (British colonial physician and pioneer in tropical medicine research, 1870-1920; bookplate and plate recording bequest from Mrs Chalmers in the year of his death, to:) – Royal Society of Medicine (ink stamp on flyleaf).
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