Johannes de Ketham’s Fasiculo de Medicina
The Fasiculo de medicina is a “bundle” of six independent and quite different medieval medical treatises. The collection, which existed only in two manuscripts (handwritten copies), was first printed...
View ArticleAndreas Vesalius’ De Humani Corporis Fabrica
De Humani Corporis Fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body) is one of the most influential works in the history of Western medicine. It was conceived and written by 28-year-old Andreas Vesalius...
View ArticleAmbroise Paré’s Oeuvres
Ambroise Paré (1510-1590), a French surgeon from humble beginnings who would revolutionize how surgeons treated wounds. This book, the 1585 edition of his Oeuvres (Collected Works) is both his...
View ArticleConrad Gesner’s Historiae Animalium
Conrad Gesner’s Historiae Animalium (Studies on Animals) is considered to be the first modern zoological work. This first attempt to describe many of the animals accurately is illustrated with...
View ArticleRobert Hooke’s Micrographia
Robert Hooke (1635-1703) was an artist, biologist, physicist, engineer, architect, inventor and much else; a man who rubbed shoulders with many of the great minds of his time, and quarreled with most...
View ArticleHieronymus Brunschwig’s Liber de Arte Distillandi
Hieronymus Brunschwig’s Liber de Arte Distillandi, printed in Strasbourg in 1512, is a practical manual on chemical, alchemical, and distillation devices and techniques used to manufacture drug...
View ArticleHanaoka Seishu’s Surgical Casebook
“A Surgical Casebook” is a manuscript of hand-painted pictures commissioned by Hanaoka Seishu, a pioneering Japanese surgeon who was the first to use general anesthesia to remove tumors from cancer...
View Articleal-Qazwini’s Wonders of Creation
The Kitab Aja’ib al-makhluqat wa Gharaib al-Mawjudat, usually known as “The Cosmography” or “The Wonders of Creation,” was compiled in the middle 1200s in what is now Iran or Iraq and is considered one...
View ArticleAndrew Snapes Anatomy of An Horse
Andrew Snape’s Anatomy of an Horse, printed in London in 1683, is one of the most comprehensive and beautifully illustrated books about the horse published in Britain in the 17th century. Little is...
View ArticleThe Edwin Smith Papyrus
The Edwin Smith Papyrus, the world’s oldest surviving surgical text, was written in Egyptian hieratic script around the 17th century BCE, but probably based on material from a thousand years earlier....
View ArticleElizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal
Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal is notable both for its beautiful illustrations of medicinal plants and for the unusual circumstances of its creation. Blackwell undertook this ambitious project...
View ArticleJohannes de Ketham’s Fasiculo de Medicina
The Fasiculo de medicina is a “bundle” of six independent and quite different medieval medical treatises. The collection, which existed only in two manuscripts (handwritten copies), was first printed...
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