GALEN,

De medicamentorum compositione secundum locos

      GALEN. GUENTHER, Johann, von Andernach (1487-1574). De medicamentorum compositione secundum locos, libri decem, nunc primum in lucem editi. Iaonne Guinterio Andernaco interprete, cum indice omnium qu[a]e notatu digna sunt, copiosissimo. Venice: (Colophon: Venetiis in Officina Lucaeantonii Iuntae Florentini), 1536. Collation: 8vo: [maltese cross]-3[maltese cross]8 A-2C8, 232 leaves, ff. [24] 207 [1]. Roman letter with Italic headings, woodcut printer's device on title and verso of last leaf. Condition: 183 x 116mm. A few gatherings browned and some light dampstaining. Binding: Contemporary limp vellum. Spine torn but sound, ties lacking. In a cloth folding case. Provenance: Contemporary inscription on front free endpaper 'Liber est Iohannis marie de peppis [uncertain: bernchidetis?] quem emi[cancellation] die xxiiii febbruarii Rome [cancellation] precio xii [uncertain: baceti? presumably a unit of money] [cancellation of the word "de"]' (This book belongs to Giovanmaria de Peppis [uncertain: Bernchidetis] which I bought on the 24th of February in Rome at the price of 12 [coins]). Annotations apparently in the same hand throughout, including notes on medicines and several words of Greek. References: EDIT16 CNCE 20162; Wellcome 2564; Durling 1862; not in Adams. Reprint of the second edition of the translation and commentary by Guenther von Andernach; the first seven books were published at Paris in 1530, the first separate edition of Galen's text, and a second edition, containing ten books, was published in 1535, of which this seems to be a reprint. There was also a Basle edition of 1530, with other works. ¶ An attractive copy with contemporary annotations of an early printing of the first separate edition of Galen's work on the diseases of different parts of the body and their treatment with compound medicines. The edition was prepared by Guenther von Andernach for his pupils in Paris, among whom was the young Vesalius, who studied with Guenther from 1533 until 1536, when this edition was printed in Venice and Vesalius moved to Padua. Vesalius assisted Guenther in his public lectures and in the preparation of his Institutiones anatomicae (Paris, 1536), which he in turn edited for his own students at Padua in 1538. From his strongly Galenic training with Guenther, Vesalius took his stand in the dedicatatory epistle in the Fabrica against fashionable doctors who scorned to use their hands, and left the preparation of medicine to druggists, unlike Galen who prepared all his own medicines. All the early editions of Guenther's recension of the text are rare, and this Venice edition is the earliest in the Wellcome Library and National Library of Medicine catalogues. There is no modern edition or translation of Guenther's text.