CELSUS (Aulus Cornelius)

Medicinae libri VIII quam emendatissimi, graecis etiam omnibus dictionibus restitutis. . . Quinti Sereni liber de medicina et ipse castigatiss. Venice, in aedibus Aldi, et Andreae Asulani, March

      8vo. [8], 164ff. Early vellum-backed 19th century marbled boards, morocco labels. 1528. First Aldine edition of the oldest western text on medicine after the Hippocratic corpus (c. 350 B.C.), . Celsus' work is also important for the reconstruction of the development of medicine from that period to his own time as so little of the source material has survived. The work also became an important handbook for practitioners, with many editions being printed in the 15th and 16th centuries. The work is the one surviving part of a much larger treatise which also dealt with agriculture, military affairs, rhetoric, jurisprudence and philsophy. It includes instructions for pain relieving elixirs using opium and wine, and descriptions of surgical procedures including tonsillectomies and cataract removal. Drugs are recommended more than by Greek writers, and there is much emphasis on general hygiene and physical exercises.Provenance. Contemporary inscription on title-page: "Pri. Joseph Stagnesio suo. Fr. Leonardus"; acquisition note inside front cover of James G. Playfair dated 1837.Renouard p. 105, 1. Ahmanson-Murphy 250. Adams C1241. Durling 908.