FRIES, Lorenz (c. 1490-1531)

Epitome opusculi de curandis pusculis ulceribus , & doloribus morbi Gallici, mali frantzoss appellati ... Basileae excudebat Henricus Petrus. [Colophon:] ... mense Augusto, anno M. D. XXXII

      Basle: Heinrich Petri, 1532. 4to: A--G4, 28 leaves, pp. [2] 3--63 (i.e. 55, several errors in pagination) [1]. Roman letter. 4-line and 3-line black on white initials, woodcut printer's device on title and verso of last leaf. Leaf size and condition: 203 x 142mm. Light foxing but a good large and fresh copy. Binding: Recent polished calf. Provenance and annotation: Walter Pagel (1896--1983); B. E. J. Pagel (1930--2007). References: VD16 F2854; Bird 929; Durling 1660 . First edition. Reprinted with other works on syphilis in Liber de morbo gallico, Venice 1535; OCLC shows an edition Basle 1569 at Gottingen, unknown to VD16. § Includes Scribonius Largus, 'Antidota', excerpts from his De compositione medicamentorum liber. 'Fries attributes the outbreak of syphilis at the end of the fifteenth century to conjunctions of the planets on October 15 and November 1, 1483. He cites Haly Abenragel and the Conciliator or Peter of Abano for the influence of the stars.' (Thorndike p. 434). Thorndike devotes a chapter on sixteenth-century German medicine to Fries and Paracelsus. Fries knew Paracelsus and corresponded with Agrippa and Thorndike notes that 'His career and writings ... had something in common with those of such intellectual vagabonds, devotees of occult science, and semi charlatans as Henry Cornelius Agrippa and Paracelsus'. Fries was from Colmar in Alsace, not from Frisia as his name would suggest, though he may have been of Dutch descent. He studied medicine at Vienna, Piacenza, Pavia and Montpellier. He practiced in Colmar, then Strasbourg, before moving to Metz shortly after Agrippa had left the city. His most famous medical work (he wrote on many other subjects) is the Spiegel der Artznei (1518), the earliest work in German on internal medicine. This edition includes Scribonius Largus, 'Antidota', excerpts from his De compositione medicamentorum liber. Literature: Thorndike, V, pp. 430--38.